VIII

Kate had not seen Lena Vroom for a long time, and she had indefinitely missed her without realizing it until one afternoon, as she was searching for something in her trunk, she came across a package of Lena’s letters written to her while she was at Silvertree.  That night at the table she asked if any one had seen Lena recently.

“Seen her?” echoed David Fulham.  “I’ve seen the shadow of her blowing across the campus.  She’s working for her doctor’s degree, like a lot of other silly women.  She’s living by herself somewhere, on crackers and cheese, no doubt.”

“Would she really be so foolish?” cried Kate.  “I know she’s devoted to her work, but surely she has some sense of moderation.”

“Not a bit of it,” protested the scientist.  “A person of mediocre attainments who gets the Ph.D. bee in her bonnet has no sense of any sort.  I see them daily, men and women,—­but women particularly,—­stalking about the grounds and in and out of classes, like grotesque ghosts.  They’re staggering under a mental load too heavy for them, and actually it might be a physical load from its effects.  They get lop-sided, I swear they do, and they acquire all sorts of miserable little personal habits that make them both pitiable and ridiculous.  For my part, I believe the day will come when no woman will be permitted to try for the higher degrees till her brain has been scientifically tested and found to be adequate for the work.”

“But as for Lena,” said Kate, “I thought she was quite a wonder at her lessons.”

“Up to a certain point,” admitted Fulham, “I’ve no doubt she does very well.  But she hasn’t the capacity for higher work, and she’ll be the last one to realize it.  My advice to you, Miss Barrington, is to look up your friend and see what she is doing with herself.  You haven’t any of you an idea of the tragedies of the classroom, and I’ll not tell them to you.  But they’re serious enough, take my word for it.”

“Yes, do look her up, Kate,” urged Honora.

“It’s hard to manage anything extra during the day,” said Kate.  “I must go some evening.”

“Perhaps Cousin Mary could go with you,” suggested Honora.  Honora threw a glance of affectionate admiration at her young cousin, who had blossomed out in a bewitching little frock of baby blue, and whose eyes reflected the color.

She was, indeed, an entrancing thing, was “Blue-eyed Mary.”  The tenderness of her lips, the softness of her complexion, the glamour of her glance increased day by day, and without apparent reason.  She seemed to be more eloquent, with the sheer eloquence of womanly emotion.  Everything that made her winning was intensified, as if Love, the Master, had touched to vividness what hitherto had been no more than a mere promise.

What was the secret of this exotic florescence?  She went out only to University affairs with Honora or Kate, or to the city with Marna Cartan.  Her interests appeared to be few; and she was neither a writer nor a receiver of letters.  Altogether, the sources of that hidden joy which threw its enchantment over her were not to be guessed.