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looking cheerfully at a pile of written papers, "I'lltake a walk, I think--a real walk." And till dinner-time she trampedsome of the old roads of her college days--more girlish than those dayshad found her, lighter-footed, she thought, than before.

  The flush was still in her cheeks as she served her hungry tableful, andshe could not fail to catch the meaning of their frank stares. Pausingin the parlor door to answer a question, she overheard a bit ofconversation:

  "Doesn't she look well with her hair low? Quite stunning, I think."

  "Yes, indeed. If only she wouldn't dress so old! It makes her lookolder than she is. That red waist she wears in the evening is awfullybecoming."

  "Yes, I hate her in dark things."

  The regret that she had not found time to put on the red waist was soinstant and keen that she laughed at herself when alone in her room. Shemoved vaguely about, aimlessly changing the position of the furniture.How absurd! To do one's hair differently, and take a long walk, and feelas if an old life were somehow far behind one!

  Later she found herself before her desk, hunting for her foreignletter-paper, and once started, her pen flew. There were long meditativelapses, followed by nervous haste, as if to make up the lost time;and just before the ten-o'clock bell she slipped out to mail a fatbrown-stamped envelope. The night-watchman chuckled as he watched thehead shrouded in the golf-cape hood bend a moment over the little whitesquare.

  "Maybe it's one o' the maids, maybe it's one o' the teachers, maybe it'sone o' the girls," he confided to his lantern; "they're all alike, cometo that! An' a good thing, too!"

  In the morning the German assistant dismissed her last class early andtook train for Springfield. On the way to the station a deferentialclerk from the bookshop waylaid her.

  "One moment, please. Those books you spoke of. Mr. Hartwell's libraryis up at auction and we're sending a man to buy to-day. If you could getthe whole set for twenty-five dollars--"

  She smiled and shook her head. "I've changed my mind, thank you--I can'tafford it. Yes, I suppose it is a bargain, but books are such a troubleto carry about, you know. No, I don't think of anything else."

  What freedom, what a strange baseless exhilaration! Suppose--supposeit was all a mistake, and she should wake back to the old stubborn,perfunctory reality! Perhaps it was better, saner--that quiettaken-for-granted existence. Perhaps she regretted--but even with thehalf-fear at her heart she laughed at that. If wake she must, she lovedthe dream. How she trusted that man! "Always I will wait"--and he would.But seven years! She threw the thought behind her.

  The next days passed in a swift, confused flight. She knew they wereall discussing her, wondering at her changed face, her fresh, becomingclothes; they decided that she had had money left her.

  "Some of my girls saw you shopping in Springfield last Saturday--theysay you got some lovely waists," said her fellow-assistant tentatively."Was this one? It's very sweet. You ought to wear red a great deal, youlook so well in it. Did you know Professor Riggs spoke of your hat withwild enthusiasm to Mrs. Austin Sunday? He said it was wonderful what adifference a stylish hat made. Not that he meant, of course--Well, it'slovely to be able to get what you want. Goodness knows, I wish I could."

  The other laughed. "Oh, it's perfectly easy if you really want to," shesaid, "it all depends on what you want, you know."

  For the first week she moved in a kind of exaltation. It was partly thather glass showed her a different woman: soft-eyed, with cheeks tintedfrom the long, restless walks through the spring that was coming on withevery warm, greening day. The excitement of the letter hung over her.She pictured her announcement, Fraeulein Mueller's amazed questions.

  "'But--but I do not understand! You are not well?'

  "'Perfectly, thank you.'

  "'But I am perfectly satisfied: I do not wish to change. You are notsick, then?'

  "'Only of teaching, Fraeulein.'

  "'But the instructorship--I was going to recommend--do not be alarmed;you shall have it surely!'

  "'You are very kind, but I have taught long enough.'

  "'Then you do not find another position? Are you to be--'"

  Always here her heart sank. Was she? What real basis had all this sweet,disturbing dream? To write so to a man after seven years! It was notdecent. She grew satiric. How embarrassing for him to read such a letterin the bosom of an affectionate, flaxen-haired family! At least, shewould never know how he really felt, thank Heaven. And what was left forher then? To her own mind she had burned her bridges already. She was asfar from this place in fancy as if the miles stretched veritably betweenthem. And yet she knew no other life. She knew no other men. He was theonly one. In a flash of shame it came over her that a woman with moreexperience would never have written such a letter. Everybody knewthat men forget, change, easily replace first loves. Nobody but such acloistered, academic spinster as she would have trusted a seven years'promise. This was another result of such lives as they led--suchhelpless, provincial women. Her resentment grew against the place. Ithad made her a fool.

  It was Sunday afternoon, and she had omitted, in deference to the day,the short skirt and walking-hat of her weekday stroll. Sunk in accusingshame, her cheeks flaming under her wide, dark hat, her quick stepmore sweeping than she knew, her eyes on the ground, she just escapedcollision with a suddenly looming masculine figure. A hasty apology, astartled glance of appeal, a quick breath that parted her lips, and shewas past the stranger. But not before she had caught in his eyes a lookthat quickened her heart, that soothed her angry humility. The suddensincere admiration, the involuntary tribute to her charm, was new toher, but the instinct of countless generations made it as plain and asmuch her prerogative as if she had been the most successful debutante.She was not, then, an object of pity, to be treasured for the sake ofthe old days; other men, too--the impulse outstripped thought, but shecaught up with it.

  "How dreadful!" she murmured, with a consciousness of undreamed depthsin herself. "Of course he is the only one--the only one!" and across thewater she begged his forgiveness.

  But through all her agony of doubt in the days that followed, one shamewas miraculously removed, one hope sang faintly beneath: she, too, hadher power! A glance in the street had called her from one army of hersisters to the other, and the difference was inestimable.

  Her classes stared at her with naive admiration. The girls in the housebegged for her as a chaperon to Amherst entertainments, and sulkedwhen a report that the young hosts found her too attractive to enablestrangers to distinguish readily between her and her charges renderedanother selection advisable. The fact that her interest in them wasfitful, sometimes making her merry and intimate, sometimes relegatingthem to a connection purely professional, only left her more interestingto them; and boxes of flowers, respectful solicitations to spreads, andtempting invitations to long drives through the lengthening afternoonsbegan to elect her to an obvious popularity. Once it would have meantmuch to her; she marvelled now at the little shade of jealousy withwhich her colleagues assured her of it. How long must she wait? Whenwould life be real again?

  She seemed to herself to move in a dream that heightened and strainedquicker as it neared an inevitable shock of waking--to what? Even at thebest, to what? Even supposing that--she put it boldly, as if it had beenanother woman--she should marry the man who had asked her seven yearsago, what was there in the very obvious future thus assured her thatcould match the hopes her heart held out? How could it be at oncethe golden harbor, the peaceful end of hurried, empty years, and thedelicious, shifting unrest that made a tumult of her days and nights?Yet something told her that it was; something repeated insistently,"Always I will wait."... He would keep faith, that grave, big man!

  But every day, as she moved with tightened lips to the table wherethe mail lay spread, coloring at a foreign stamp, paling with thedisappointment, her hope grew fainter. He dared not write and tell her.It was over. Violet shadows darkened her eyes; a feverish flush madeher, as it grew and faded at the slightest warning, more g
irlish thanever.

  But the young life about her seemed only to mock her own late weakenedimpulse. It was not the same. She was playing heavy stakes: they hardlyrealized the game. All but one, they irritated her. This one, sinceher first short call, had come and come again. No explanations, noconfidences, had passed between them; their sympathy, deep-rooted,expressed itself perfectly in the ordinary conventional tone of tworeserved if congenial natures. The girl did not discuss herself, thewoman dared not. They talked of books, music, travel; never, as if bytacit agreement, of any of the countless possible personalities in aplace so given to personal discussion.

  She could not have told how she knew that the girl had come to collegeto please a mother whose