CHAPTER XVI

PLAYING WITH MATCHES

There was much that was acrid about the sweetness of triumph which the next months brought Sylvia.  The sudden change in her life had not come until there was an accumulation of bitterness in her heart the venting of which was the strongest emotion of that period of strong emotions.  As she drove about the campus, perched on the high seat of the red-wheeled dog-cart, her lovely face looked down with none of Eleanor Hubert’s gentleness into the envying eyes of the other girls.  A high color burned in her cheeks, and her bright eyes were not soft.  She looked continually excited.

At home she was hard to live with, quick to take offense at the least breath of the adverse criticism which she felt, unspoken and forbearing but thick in the air about her.  She neglected her music, she neglected her studies; she spent long hours of feverish toil over Aunt Victoria’s chiffons and silks.  There was need for many toilets now, for the incessantly recurring social events to which she went with young Fiske, chaperoned by Mrs. Draper, who had for her old rival and enemy, Mrs. Hubert, the most mocking of friendly smiles, as she entered a ballroom, the acknowledged sponsor of the brilliant young sensation of the college season.

At these dances Sylvia had the grim satisfaction, not infrequently the experience of intelligent young ladies, of being surrounded by crowds of admiring young men, for whom she had no admiration, the barren sterility of whose conversation filled her with astonishment, even in her fever of exultation.  She knew the delights of frequently “splitting” her dances so that there might be enough to go around.  She was plunged headlong into the torrent of excitement which is the life of a social favorite at a large State University, that breathless whirl of one engagement after another for every evening and for most of the days, which is one of the oddest developments of the academic life as planned and provided for by the pioneer fathers of those great Western commonwealths; and she savored every moment of it, for during every moment she drank deep at the bitter fountain of personal vindication.  She went to all the affairs which had ignored her the year before, to all the dances given by the “swell men’s fraternities,” to the Sophomore hop, to the “Football Dance,” at the end of the season, to the big reception given to the Freshman class by the Seniors.  And in addition to these evening affairs, she appeared beside Jerry Fiske at every football game, at the first Glee Club Concert, at the outdoor play given by the Literary Societies, and very frequently at the weekly receptions to the students tendered by the ladies of the faculty.