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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/23364-0.txt b/23364-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a2e6b65 --- /dev/null +++ b/23364-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1021 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Reversion To Type, by Josephine Daskam + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: A Reversion To Type + +Author: Josephine Daskam + +Release Date: November 6, 2007 [EBook #23364] +Last Updated: March 8, 2018 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A REVERSION TO TYPE *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + + +A REVERSION TO TYPE + +By Josephine Daskam + +Copyright, 1903, by Charles Scribner's Sons + + +She had never felt so tired of it all, it seemed to her. The sun +streamed hot across the backs of the shining seats into her eyes, but +she was too tired to get the window-pole. She watched the incoming class +listlessly, wondering whether it would be worth while to ask one of +them to close the shutter. They chattered and giggled and bustled +in, rattling the chairs about, and begging one another's pardon +vociferously, with that insistent politeness which marks a sharply +defined stage in the social evolution of the young girl. They irritated +her excessively--these little airs and graces. She opened her book with +a snap, and began to call the roll sharply. + +Midway up the room sat a tall, dark girl, not handsome, but noticeably +well dressed. She looked politely at her questioner when spoken to, but +seemed as far in spirit as the distant trees toward which she directed +her attention when not particularly addressed. She seemed to have a +certain personality, a self-possession, a source of interest other than +collegiate; and this held her apart from the others in the mind of the +woman who sat before the desk. + +What was that girl thinking of, she wondered, as she called another +name and glanced at the book to gather material for a question. What a +perfect taste had combined that dark, brocaded vest with the dull, rough +cloth of the suit--and she dressed her hair so well! She had a beautiful +band of pearls on one finger: was it an engagement-ring? No, that would +be a solitaire. + +And all this time she called names from the interminable list, and +mechanically corrected the mistakes of their owners. Her eyes went back +to the girl in the middle row, who turned her head and yawned a little. +They took their education very easily, these maidens. + +How she had saved and denied herself, and even consented to the +indebtedness she so hated, to gain that coveted German winter! And how +delightful it had been! + +Almost she saw again the dear home of that blessed year: the kindly +housemother; the chubby _Mädchen_ who knitted her a silk purse, and +cried when she left; the father with his beloved 'cello and his deep, +honest voice. + +How cunning the little Bertha had been! How pleasant it was to hear her +gay little voice when one came down the shady street!”_Da ist sie, ja!_” + she would call to her mother, and then Hermann would come up to her with +his hands outstretched. Had she had a hard day? Was the lecture good? +How brown his beard was, and how deep and faithful his brown eyes +were! And he used to sing--why were there no bass voices in the +States?”_Kennst du das Land_” he used to sing, and his mother cried +softly to herself for pleasure. And once she herself had cried a little. + +“No,” she said to the girl who was reciting, “no, it takes the dative. +I cannot seem to impress sufficiently on your minds the necessity for +learning that list thoroughly. You may translate now.” + +And they translated. How they drawled it over, the beautiful, rich +German. Hermann had begged so, but she had felt differently then. She +had loved her work in anticipation. To marry and settle down--she was +not ready. It would be so good to be independent. And now--But it +was too late. That was years ago. Hermann must have found some +yellow-braided, blue-eyed Dorothea by this--some _Mädchen_ who cared not +for calculus and Hebrew, but only to be what her mother had been, wife +and house-mother. But this was treason. Our grandmothers had thought +that. + +She looked at the girl in the middle row. What beautiful hair she had! +What an idiot she was to give up four years of her life to this round of +work and play and pretence of living! Oh, to go back to Germany--to see +Bertha and her mother again, and hear the father's 'cello! Hermann had +loved her so! He had said, so quietly and yet so surely: “But thou wilt +come back, my heart's own. And always I wait here for thee. Make me +not wait long!” He had seemed too quiet then--too slow and too easily +content. She had wanted quicker, busier, more individual life. And now +her heart said, “O fool!” + +Was it too late? Suppose she should go, after all? Suppose she should +go, and all should be as it had been, only a little older, a little more +quiet and peaceful? The very fancy filled her heart with sudden calm. +A love so deep and sure, so broad and sweet--could it not dignify any +woman's life? And she had been thought worthy and had refused this love! +O fool! + +Suppose she went and found--her heart beat too quickly, and her face +flushed. She called on the bright girl in the front row. + +“And what have _you_ learned?” she said. + +The girl coughed importantly. “It is a poem of Goethe's,” she announced +in her high, satisfied voice. “_Kennst du das Land_” + +“That will do,” said the German assistant. “I fear we shall not have +time for it to-day. The hour is up. You may go on with the translation +for to-morrow.” And as the class rose with a growing clamor she realized +that though she had been thinking steadily in German, she had been +talking in English. So that was why they had comprehended so well and +answered so readily! And yet she was too glad to be annoyed at the slip. +There were other things: her life was not a German class! + +As the girls crowded out, one stopped by the desk. She laid her hand +with the pearl band on the third finger on the teacher's arm. “You look +tired,” she said. “I hope you're not ill?” + +“Ill?” said the woman at the desk. “I never felt better. I've been +neglecting my classes, I fear, in the study of your green gown. It is so +very pretty.” + +The girl smiled and colored a little. + +“I'm glad you like it,” she said. “I like it, too.” Then, with a sudden +feeling of friendship, an odd sense of intimacy, a quick impulse of +common femininity, she added: + +“I've had some good times in this dress. Wearing it up here makes me +remember them very strangely. It's queer, what a difference it makes--” + She stopped and looked questioningly at the older woman. + +But the German assistant smiled at her. “Yes,” she said, “it is. And +when you have been teaching seven years the difference becomes very +apparent.” She gathered up her books, still smiling in a reminiscent +way. And as she went out of the door, she looked back at the glaring, +sunny room as if already it were far behind her, as if already she felt +the house-mother's kiss, and heard the 'cello, and saw Klara's tiny +daughter standing by the door, throwing kisses, calling, “_Da ist sie, +ja!_” + +Lost in the dream, her eyes fixed absently, she stumbled against her +fellow-assistant, who was making for the room she had just left. + +“I beg your pardon--I wasn't looking. Oh, it's you!” she murmured +vaguely. Her fellow-assistant had a headache, and forty-five written +papers to correct. She had just heard, too, a cutting criticism of +her work made by the self-appointed faculty critic; the criticism was +cleverly worded, and had just enough truth to fly quickly and hurt her +with the head of her department. So she was not in the best of tempers. + +“Yes, it's I,” she said crossly. “If you had knocked these papers an +inch farther, I should have invited you to correct them. If you go about +in that abstracted way much longer, my dear, Miss Selbourne will inform +the world (on the very best authority) that you're in love.” + +“I? What nonsense!” + +It was a ridiculous thing to say, and she flushed angrily at herself. It +was only a joke, of course. + +The other woman laughed shortly. + +“Dear me! I really believe you are!” she exclaimed. “The girls were +saying at breakfast that Professor Tredick was ruining himself +in violets yesterday--so it was for you!” and she went into the +lecture-room. + +A chattering crowd of girls closed in behind her. One voice rose above +the rest: + +“Well, I don't know what you call it, then. He skated with her all the +winter, and at the Dickinson party they sat on one sofa for an hour and +talked steadily!” + +“Oh, nonsense! She skates beautifully, that's all.” + +“She sits on a sofa beautifully, too.” A burst of laughter, and the door +closed. + +The German assistant smiled satirically. It was all of a piece. At +least, the younger women were perfectly frank about it: they did not +feel themselves forced to employ sarcasm in their references; it was +not necessary for them to appear to have definitely chosen this life +in preference to any other. Four years was little to lend to such an +experiment. But the older women, who sat on those prim little platforms +year after year--a sudden curiosity possessed her to know how many of +them were really satisfied. + +Could it be that they had preferred--actually preferred--But she had, +herself, three years ago. She shook her head decidedly. “Not for nine +years, not for nine!” she murmured, as she caught through the heavy door +a familiar voice raised to emphasize some French phrase. + +And yet, somebody must teach them. They could not be born with foreign +idioms and historical dates and mathematical formulae in their little +heads. She herself deplored the modern tendency that sent a changing +drift of young teachers through the colleges, to learn at the expense +of the students a soon relinquished profession. But how ridiculous +the position of the women who prided themselves on the steadiness and +continuity of their service! Surely they must find it an empty success +at times. They must regret. + +She was passing through the chapel. Two scrubbing-women were +straightening the chairs, their backs turned to her. + +“From all I hear,” said one, with a chuckle and a sly glance, “we'll be +afther gettin' our invitations soon.” + +“An' to what?” demanded the other quickly. + +“Sure, they say it's a weddin'.” + +“Ah, now, hush yer noise, Mary Nolan; 'tis no such thing. I've had +enough o' husbands. I know when I'm doin' well, an' that's as I am!” + +“'Tis strange that the men sh'd think different, now, but they do!” + +They laughed heartily and long. The German assistant looked at the broad +backs meditatively. Just now they seemed to her more consistent than any +other women in the great building. + +She walked quickly across the greening campus. The close-set brick +buildings seemed to press up against her; every window stood for some +crowded, narrow room, filled with books and tea-cups and clothes and +photographs--hundreds of them, and all alike. In her own room she tried +to reason herself out of this intolerable depression, to realize +the advantages of a quiet life in what was surely the same pleasant, +cultured atmosphere to which she had so eagerly looked forward three +years ago. Her room was large, well furnished, perfectly heated; and +if the condition of her closet would have appeared nothing short of +appalling to a householder, that condition was owing to the hopeless +exigencies of the occasion. With the exception of that whited sepulchre, +all was neat, artistic, eminently habitable. She surveyed it critically: +the “Mona Lisa,” the large “Melrose Abbey,” the Burne-Jones draperies, +and the “Blessed Damozel” that spread a placid if monotonous culture +through the rooms of educated single women. A proper appreciation of +polished wood, the sanitary and aesthetic values of the open fire, a +certain scheme in couch-pillows, all linked it to the dozen other rooms +that occupied the same relative ground-floor corners in a dozen other +houses. Some of them had more books, some ran to handsome photographs, +some afforded fads in old furniture; but it was only a question of more +or less. It looked utterly impersonal to-day; its very atmosphere was +artificial, typical, a pretended self-sufficiency. + +How many years more should she live in it--three, nine, thirteen? The +tide of girls would ebb and flow with every June and September; eighteen +to twenty-two would ring their changes through the terms, and she could +take her choice of the two methods of regarding them: she could insist +on a perennial interest in the separate personalities, and endure +weariness for the sake of an uncertain influence; or she could mass them +frankly as the student body, and confine the connection to marking their +class-room efforts and serving their meat in the dining-room. The latter +was at once more honest and more easy; all but the most ambitious or the +most conscientious came ta it sooner or later. + +The youngest among the assistants, themselves fresh from college, +mingled naturally enough with the students; they danced and skated and +enjoyed their girlish authority. The older women, seasoned to the life, +settled there indefinitely, identified themselves more or less with the +town, amused themselves with their little aristocracy of precedence, and +wove and interwove the complicated, slender strands of college gossip. +But a woman of barely thirty, too old for friendships with young girls, +too young to find her placid recreation in the stereotyped round of +social functions, that seemed so perfectly imitative of the normal and +yet so curiously unsuccessful at bottom--what was there for her? + +Her eyes were fixed on the hill-slope view that made her room +so desirable. It occurred to her that its changelessness was not +necessarily so attractive a characteristic as the local poets practised +themselves in assuring her. + +A light knock at the door recalled to her the utter lack of privacy +that put her at the mercy of laundress, sophomore, and expressman. She +regretted that she had not put up the little sign whose “_Please do not +disturb_” was her only means of defence. + +“Come!” she called shortly, and the tall girl in the green dress stood +in the open door. A strange sense of long acquaintance, a vague feeling +of familiarity, surprised the older woman. Her expression changed. + +“Come in,” she said cordially. + +“I--am I disturbing you?” asked the girl doubtfully. She had a pile of +books on her arm; her trim jacket and hat, and something in the way she +held her armful, seemed curiously at variance with her tam-o'-shantered, +golf-caped friends. + +“I couldn't find out whether you had an office hour, and I didn't know +whether I ought to have sent in my name--it seemed so formal, when it is +only a moment I need to see you--” + +“Sit down,” said the German assistant pleasantly. “What can I do for +you?” + +“I have been talking with Fräulein Müller about my German, and she +says if you are willing to give me an outline for advanced work and an +examination later on, I can go into a higher division in a little while. +Languages are always easy for me, and I could go on much quicker.” + +“Oh, certainly. I have thought more than once that you were wasting +your time. The class is too large and too slow. I will make you out +an outline and give it to you after class to-morrow,” said the German +assistant promptly. “Meanwhile, won't you stay and make me a +little call? I will light the fire and make some tea, if that is an +inducement.” + +“The invitation is inducement enough, I assure you,” smiled the girl, +“but I must not stay to-day, I think. If you will let me come again, +when I have no work to bother you with, I should love to.” + +There was something easily decisive in her manner, something very +different from the other students, who refused such invitations +awkwardly, eager to be pressed, and when finally assured of a sincere +welcome, prolonged their calls and talked about themselves into the +uncounted hours. Evidently she would not stay this time; evidently she +would like to come again. + +As the door closed behind her the German assistant dropped her cordial +smile, and sank back listlessly in her chair. + +“After all, she's only a girl!” she murmured. For almost an hour she sat +looking fixedly at the unlit logs, hardly conscious of the wasted time. +Much might have gone into that hour. There was tea for her at one of the +college houses--the hostess had a “day,” and went so far as to aspire +to the exclusive serving of a certain kind of tinned fancy biscuit every +Friday--if she wanted to drop in. This hostess invited favored students +to meet the faculty and townspeople on these occasions, and the +two latter classes were expected to effect a social fusion with the +former--which linked it, to some minds, a little too obviously with +professional duties. + +She might call on the head of her department, who was suffering from +some slight indisposition, and receive minute advice as to the conduct +of her classes, mingled with general criticism of various colleagues +and their methods. She might make a number of calls; but if there is one +situation in which the futility of these social mockeries becomes most +thoroughly obvious, it is the situation presented by an attempt to +imitate the conventional society life in a woman's college. And yet--she +had gone over the whole question so often--what a desert of awkwardness +and learned provincialism such a college would be without the attempt! +How often she had cordially agreed to the statement that it was +precisely because of its insistence upon this connection with the forms +and relations of normal life that her college was so successfully free +from the tomboyishness or the priggishness or the gaucherie of some of +the others! And yet its very success came from begging the question, +after all. + +She shook her head impatiently. A strong odor of boiling chocolate +crept through the transom. Somebody began to practise a monotonous +accompaniment on the guitar. Over her head a series of startling bumps +and jarring falls suggested a troupe of baby elephants practising for +their first appearance in public. The German assistant set her teeth. + +“Before I die,” she announced to her image in the glass, “I propose to +inquire flatly of Miss Burgess if she _does_ pile her furniture in +a heap and slide down it on her toboggan! There is no other logical +explanation of that horrible disturbance.” + +The face in the glass caught her attention. It looked sallow, with +lines under the eyes. The hair rolled back a little too severely for +the prevailing mode, and she recalled her late visitor's effectively +adjusted side-combs, her soft, dark waves. + +“They have time for it, evidently,” she mused, “and after all it is +certainly more important than modal auxiliaries!” + +And for half an hour she twisted and looped and coiled, between the +chiffonnier and a hand-glass, fairly flushing with pleasure at the +result. + +“Now,” she said, looking cheerfully at a pile of written papers, “I'll +take a walk, I think--a real walk.” And till dinner-time she tramped +some of the old roads of her college days--more girlish than those days +had found her, lighter-footed, she thought, than before. + +The flush was still in her cheeks as she served her hungry tableful, and +she could not fail to catch the meaning of their frank stares. Pausing +in the parlor door to answer a question, she overheard a bit of +conversation: + +“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 look +older than she is. That red waist she wears in the evening is awfully +becoming.” + +“Yes, I hate her in dark things.” + +The regret that she had not found time to put on the red waist was so +instant and keen that she laughed at herself when alone in her room. She +moved vaguely about, aimlessly changing the position of the furniture. +How absurd! To do one's hair differently, and take a long walk, and feel +as if an old life were somehow far behind one! + +Later she found herself before her desk, hunting for her foreign +letter-paper, and once started, her pen flew. There were long meditative +lapses, 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 fat +brown-stamped envelope. The night-watchman chuckled as he watched the +head shrouded in the golf-cape hood bend a moment over the little white +square. + +“Maybe it's one o' the maids, maybe it's one o' the teachers, maybe it's +one o' the girls,” he confided to his lantern; “they're all alike, come +to that! An' a good thing, too!” + +In the morning the German assistant dismissed her last class early and +took train for Springfield. On the way to the station a deferential +clerk from the bookshop waylaid her. + +“One moment, please. Those books you spoke of. Mr. Hartwell's library +is up at auction and we're sending a man to buy to-day. If you could get +the whole set for twenty-five dollars--” + +She smiled and shook her head. “I've changed my mind, thank you--I can't +afford it. Yes, I suppose it is a bargain, but books are such a trouble +to carry about, you know. No, I don't think of anything else.” + +What freedom, what a strange baseless exhilaration! Suppose--suppose +it was all a mistake, and she should wake back to the old stubborn, +perfunctory reality! Perhaps it was better, saner--that quiet +taken-for-granted existence. Perhaps she regretted--but even with the +half-fear at her heart she laughed at that. If wake she must, she loved +the 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 were +all discussing her, wondering at her changed face, her fresh, becoming +clothes; they decided that she had had money left her. + +“Some of my girls saw you shopping in Springfield last Saturday--they +say 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, you +look so well in it. Did you know Professor Riggs spoke of your hat with +wild enthusiasm to Mrs. Austin Sunday? He said it was wonderful what a +difference a stylish hat made. Not that he meant, of course--Well, it's +lovely 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,” she +said, “it all depends on what you want, you know.” + +For the first week she moved in a kind of exaltation. It was partly that +her glass showed her a different woman: soft-eyed, with cheeks tinted +from the long, restless walks through the spring that was coming on with +every warm, greening day. The excitement of the letter hung over her. +She pictured her announcement, Fräulein Müller'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 not +sick, then?' + +“'Only of teaching, Fräulein.' + +“'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 not +decent. She grew satiric. How embarrassing for him to read such a letter +in the bosom of an affectionate, flaxen-haired family! At least, she +would never know how he really felt, thank Heaven. And what was left for +her then? To her own mind she had burned her bridges already. She was as +far from this place in fancy as if the miles stretched veritably between +them. And yet she knew no other life. She knew no other men. He was the +only one. In a flash of shame it came over her that a woman with more +experience would never have written such a letter. Everybody knew +that men forget, change, easily replace first loves. Nobody but such a +cloistered, academic spinster as she would have trusted a seven years' +promise. This was another result of such lives as they led--such +helpless, provincial women. Her resentment grew against the place. It +had 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 accusing +shame, her cheeks flaming under her wide, dark hat, her quick step +more sweeping than she knew, her eyes on the ground, she just escaped +collision with a suddenly looming masculine figure. A hasty apology, a +startled glance of appeal, a quick breath that parted her lips, and she +was past the stranger. But not before she had caught in his eyes a look +that quickened her heart, that soothed her angry humility. The sudden +sincere admiration, the involuntary tribute to her charm, was new to +her, but the instinct of countless generations made it as plain and as +much her prerogative as if she had been the most successful débutante. +She was not, then, an object of pity, to be treasured for the sake of +the old days; other men, too--the impulse outstripped thought, but she +caught up with it. + +“How dreadful!” she murmured, with a consciousness of undreamed depths +in herself. “Of course he is the only one--the only one!” and across the +water she begged his forgiveness. + +But through all her agony of doubt in the days that followed, one shame +was miraculously removed, one hope sang faintly beneath: she, too, had +her power! A glance in the street had called her from one army of her +sisters to the other, and the difference was inestimable. + +Her classes stared at her with naïve admiration. The girls in the house +begged for her as a chaperon to Amherst entertainments, and sulked +when a report that the young hosts found her too attractive to enable +strangers to distinguish readily between her and her charges rendered +another selection advisable. The fact that her interest in them was +fitful, sometimes making her merry and intimate, sometimes relegating +them to a connection purely professional, only left her more interesting +to them; and boxes of flowers, respectful solicitations to spreads, and +tempting invitations to long drives through the lengthening afternoons +began to elect her to an obvious popularity. Once it would have meant +much to her; she marvelled now at the little shade of jealousy with +which her colleagues assured her of it. How long must she wait? When +would life be real again? + +She seemed to herself to move in a dream that heightened and strained +quicker as it neared an inevitable shock of waking--to what? Even at the +best, to what? Even supposing that--she put it boldly, as if it had been +another woman--she should marry the man who had asked her seven years +ago, what was there in the very obvious future thus assured her that +could match the hopes her heart held out? How could it be at once +the golden harbor, the peaceful end of hurried, empty years, and the +delicious, 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 where +the mail lay spread, coloring at a foreign stamp, paling with the +disappointment, her hope grew fainter. He dared not write and tell her. +It was over. Violet shadows darkened her eyes; a feverish flush made +her, as it grew and faded at the slightest warning, more girlish than +ever. + +But the young life about her seemed only to mock her own late weakened +impulse. It was not the same. She was playing heavy stakes: they hardly +realized the game. All but one, they irritated her. This one, since +her first short call, had come and come again. No explanations, no +confidences, had passed between them; their sympathy, deep-rooted, +expressed itself perfectly in the ordinary conventional tone of two +reserved if congenial natures. The girl did not discuss herself, the +woman dared not. They talked of books, music, travel; never, as if by +tacit agreement, of any of the countless possible personalities in a +place so given to personal discussion. + +She could not have told how she knew that the girl had come to college +to please a mother whose great regret was to have missed such training, +nor did she remember when her incurious friend had learned her tense +determination of flight; she could have sworn that she had never spoken +of it. Sometimes, so perfectly did they appear to understand each other +beneath an indifferent conversation, it seemed to her that the words +must be the merest symbols, and that the girl who always caught her +lightest shade of meaning knew to exactness her alternate hope and fear, +the rudderless tossing toward and from her taunting harbor-light. + +They sat by an open window, breathing in the moist air from the fresh, +upturned earth. The gardeners were working over the sprouting beds; the +sun came in warm and sweet. + +“Three weeks ago it was almost cold at this time,” said the girl. “In +the springtime I give up going home, and love the place. But two years +more--two years!” + +“Do you really mind it so much?” + +“I think what I mind the most is that I don't like it more,” said the +girl slowly. “Mamma wanted it so. She really loved study. I don't, but +if I did--I should love it more than this. This would seem so childish. +And if I just wanted a good time, why, then this would seem such a lot +of trouble. All the good things here seem--seem remedies!” + +The older woman laughed nervously. Three weeks--three weeks and no word! + +“You will be making epigrams, my dear, if you don't take care,” she +said lightly. “But you're going to finish just the same? The girls like +you, your work is good; you ought to stay.” + +The girl flashed a look of surprise at her. It was her only hint of +sympathy. + +“You advise me to?” she asked quietly. + +“I think it would be a pity to disappoint your mother,” with a light +hand on her shoulder. “You are so young--four years is very, little. Of +course you could do the work in half the time, but you admit that you +are not an ardent student. If nobody came here but the girls that really +needed to, we shouldn't have the reputation that we have. The girls to +whom this place means the last word in learning and the last grace of +social life are estimable young women, but not so pleasant to meet as +you.” + +Three weeks--but he had waited seven years! + +“I am very childish,” said the girl. “Of course I will stay. And some +of it I like very much. It's only that mamma doesn't understand. She +overestimates it so. Somehow, the more complete it is, the more like +everything else, the more you have to find fault with on all sides. I'd +rather have come when mamma was a girl.” + +“I see. I have thought that, too.” + +Ah, fool, give up your senseless hope! You had your chance--you lost it. +Fate cannot stop and wait while you grow wise. + +“When that shadow covers the hill, I will give it up forever. Then I +will write to Henry's wife and ask her to let me come and help take care +of the children. She will like it, and I can get tutoring if I want +it. I will make the children love me, and there will be a place where I +shall be wanted and can help,” she thought. + +The shadow slipped lower. The fresh turf steeped in the last rays, the +birds sang, the warming earth seemed to have touched the very core of +spring. Her hopes had answered the eager years, but her miracle was too +wonderful to be. + +A light knock at the door, and a maid came toward her, tray in hand. She +lifted the card carelessly--her heart dropped a moment and beat in +hard, slow throbs. Her eyes filled with tears; her cheeks were hot and +brilliant. + +“I will be there in a moment.” How deep her voice sounded! + +The girl slipped by her. + +“I was going anyway,” she said softly. “Good-by! Don't touch your +hair--it's just right.” + +She did not wait for an answer, but went out. As she passed by +the little reception-room a tall, eager man made toward her with +outstretched hands. Her voice trembled as she laughed. + +“No, no--I'm not the one,” she murmured, “but she--she's coming!” + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Reversion To Type, by Josephine Daskam + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A REVERSION TO TYPE *** + +***** This file should be named 23364-0.txt or 23364-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/3/3/6/23364/ + +Produced by David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: A Reversion To Type + +Author: Josephine Daskam + +Release Date: November 6, 2007 [EBook #23364] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A REVERSION TO TYPE *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + + +A REVERSION TO TYPE + +By Josephine Daskam + +Copyright, 1903, by Charles Scribner's Sons + + +She had never felt so tired of it all, it seemed to her. The sun +streamed hot across the backs of the shining seats into her eyes, but +she was too tired to get the window-pole. She watched the incoming class +listlessly, wondering whether it would be worth while to ask one of +them to close the shutter. They chattered and giggled and bustled +in, rattling the chairs about, and begging one another's pardon +vociferously, with that insistent politeness which marks a sharply +defined stage in the social evolution of the young girl. They irritated +her excessively--these little airs and graces. She opened her book with +a snap, and began to call the roll sharply. + +Midway up the room sat a tall, dark girl, not handsome, but noticeably +well dressed. She looked politely at her questioner when spoken to, but +seemed as far in spirit as the distant trees toward which she directed +her attention when not particularly addressed. She seemed to have a +certain personality, a self-possession, a source of interest other than +collegiate; and this held her apart from the others in the mind of the +woman who sat before the desk. + +What was that girl thinking of, she wondered, as she called another +name and glanced at the book to gather material for a question. What a +perfect taste had combined that dark, brocaded vest with the dull, rough +cloth of the suit--and she dressed her hair so well! She had a beautiful +band of pearls on one finger: was it an engagement-ring? No, that would +be a solitaire. + +And all this time she called names from the interminable list, and +mechanically corrected the mistakes of their owners. Her eyes went back +to the girl in the middle row, who turned her head and yawned a little. +They took their education very easily, these maidens. + +How she had saved and denied herself, and even consented to the +indebtedness she so hated, to gain that coveted German winter! And how +delightful it had been! + +Almost she saw again the dear home of that blessed year: the kindly +housemother; the chubby _Mdchen_ who knitted her a silk purse, and +cried when she left; the father with his beloved 'cello and his deep, +honest voice. + +How cunning the little Bertha had been! How pleasant it was to hear her +gay little voice when one came down the shady street!"_Da ist sie, ja!_" +she would call to her mother, and then Hermann would come up to her with +his hands outstretched. Had she had a hard day? Was the lecture good? +How brown his beard was, and how deep and faithful his brown eyes +were! And he used to sing--why were there no bass voices in the +States?"_Kennst du das Land_" he used to sing, and his mother cried +softly to herself for pleasure. And once she herself had cried a little. + +"No," she said to the girl who was reciting, "no, it takes the dative. +I cannot seem to impress sufficiently on your minds the necessity for +learning that list thoroughly. You may translate now." + +And they translated. How they drawled it over, the beautiful, rich +German. Hermann had begged so, but she had felt differently then. She +had loved her work in anticipation. To marry and settle down--she was +not ready. It would be so good to be independent. And now--But it +was too late. That was years ago. Hermann must have found some +yellow-braided, blue-eyed Dorothea by this--some _Mdchen_ who cared not +for calculus and Hebrew, but only to be what her mother had been, wife +and house-mother. But this was treason. Our grandmothers had thought +that. + +She looked at the girl in the middle row. What beautiful hair she had! +What an idiot she was to give up four years of her life to this round of +work and play and pretence of living! Oh, to go back to Germany--to see +Bertha and her mother again, and hear the father's 'cello! Hermann had +loved her so! He had said, so quietly and yet so surely: "But thou wilt +come back, my heart's own. And always I wait here for thee. Make me +not wait long!" He had seemed too quiet then--too slow and too easily +content. She had wanted quicker, busier, more individual life. And now +her heart said, "O fool!" + +Was it too late? Suppose she should go, after all? Suppose she should +go, and all should be as it had been, only a little older, a little more +quiet and peaceful? The very fancy filled her heart with sudden calm. +A love so deep and sure, so broad and sweet--could it not dignify any +woman's life? And she had been thought worthy and had refused this love! +O fool! + +Suppose she went and found--her heart beat too quickly, and her face +flushed. She called on the bright girl in the front row. + +"And what have _you_ learned?" she said. + +The girl coughed importantly. "It is a poem of Goethe's," she announced +in her high, satisfied voice. "_Kennst du das Land_" + +"That will do," said the German assistant. "I fear we shall not have +time for it to-day. The hour is up. You may go on with the translation +for to-morrow." And as the class rose with a growing clamor she realized +that though she had been thinking steadily in German, she had been +talking in English. So that was why they had comprehended so well and +answered so readily! And yet she was too glad to be annoyed at the slip. +There were other things: her life was not a German class! + +As the girls crowded out, one stopped by the desk. She laid her hand +with the pearl band on the third finger on the teacher's arm. "You look +tired," she said. "I hope you're not ill?" + +"Ill?" said the woman at the desk. "I never felt better. I've been +neglecting my classes, I fear, in the study of your green gown. It is so +very pretty." + +The girl smiled and colored a little. + +"I'm glad you like it," she said. "I like it, too." Then, with a sudden +feeling of friendship, an odd sense of intimacy, a quick impulse of +common femininity, she added: + +"I've had some good times in this dress. Wearing it up here makes me +remember them very strangely. It's queer, what a difference it makes--" +She stopped and looked questioningly at the older woman. + +But the German assistant smiled at her. "Yes," she said, "it is. And +when you have been teaching seven years the difference becomes very +apparent." She gathered up her books, still smiling in a reminiscent +way. And as she went out of the door, she looked back at the glaring, +sunny room as if already it were far behind her, as if already she felt +the house-mother's kiss, and heard the 'cello, and saw Klara's tiny +daughter standing by the door, throwing kisses, calling, "_Da ist sie, +ja!_" + +Lost in the dream, her eyes fixed absently, she stumbled against her +fellow-assistant, who was making for the room she had just left. + +"I beg your pardon--I wasn't looking. Oh, it's you!" she murmured +vaguely. Her fellow-assistant had a headache, and forty-five written +papers to correct. She had just heard, too, a cutting criticism of +her work made by the self-appointed faculty critic; the criticism was +cleverly worded, and had just enough truth to fly quickly and hurt her +with the head of her department. So she was not in the best of tempers. + +"Yes, it's I," she said crossly. "If you had knocked these papers an +inch farther, I should have invited you to correct them. If you go about +in that abstracted way much longer, my dear, Miss Selbourne will inform +the world (on the very best authority) that you're in love." + +"I? What nonsense!" + +It was a ridiculous thing to say, and she flushed angrily at herself. It +was only a joke, of course. + +The other woman laughed shortly. + +"Dear me! I really believe you are!" she exclaimed. "The girls were +saying at breakfast that Professor Tredick was ruining himself +in violets yesterday--so it was for you!" and she went into the +lecture-room. + +A chattering crowd of girls closed in behind her. One voice rose above +the rest: + +"Well, I don't know what you call it, then. He skated with her all the +winter, and at the Dickinson party they sat on one sofa for an hour and +talked steadily!" + +"Oh, nonsense! She skates beautifully, that's all." + +"She sits on a sofa beautifully, too." A burst of laughter, and the door +closed. + +The German assistant smiled satirically. It was all of a piece. At +least, the younger women were perfectly frank about it: they did not +feel themselves forced to employ sarcasm in their references; it was +not necessary for them to appear to have definitely chosen this life +in preference to any other. Four years was little to lend to such an +experiment. But the older women, who sat on those prim little platforms +year after year--a sudden curiosity possessed her to know how many of +them were really satisfied. + +Could it be that they had preferred--actually preferred--But she had, +herself, three years ago. She shook her head decidedly. "Not for nine +years, not for nine!" she murmured, as she caught through the heavy door +a familiar voice raised to emphasize some French phrase. + +And yet, somebody must teach them. They could not be born with foreign +idioms and historical dates and mathematical formulae in their little +heads. She herself deplored the modern tendency that sent a changing +drift of young teachers through the colleges, to learn at the expense +of the students a soon relinquished profession. But how ridiculous +the position of the women who prided themselves on the steadiness and +continuity of their service! Surely they must find it an empty success +at times. They must regret. + +She was passing through the chapel. Two scrubbing-women were +straightening the chairs, their backs turned to her. + +"From all I hear," said one, with a chuckle and a sly glance, "we'll be +afther gettin' our invitations soon." + +"An' to what?" demanded the other quickly. + +"Sure, they say it's a weddin'." + +"Ah, now, hush yer noise, Mary Nolan; 'tis no such thing. I've had +enough o' husbands. I know when I'm doin' well, an' that's as I am!" + +"'Tis strange that the men sh'd think different, now, but they do!" + +They laughed heartily and long. The German assistant looked at the broad +backs meditatively. Just now they seemed to her more consistent than any +other women in the great building. + +She walked quickly across the greening campus. The close-set brick +buildings seemed to press up against her; every window stood for some +crowded, narrow room, filled with books and tea-cups and clothes and +photographs--hundreds of them, and all alike. In her own room she tried +to reason herself out of this intolerable depression, to realize +the advantages of a quiet life in what was surely the same pleasant, +cultured atmosphere to which she had so eagerly looked forward three +years ago. Her room was large, well furnished, perfectly heated; and +if the condition of her closet would have appeared nothing short of +appalling to a householder, that condition was owing to the hopeless +exigencies of the occasion. With the exception of that whited sepulchre, +all was neat, artistic, eminently habitable. She surveyed it critically: +the "Mona Lisa," the large "Melrose Abbey," the Burne-Jones draperies, +and the "Blessed Damozel" that spread a placid if monotonous culture +through the rooms of educated single women. A proper appreciation of +polished wood, the sanitary and aesthetic values of the open fire, a +certain scheme in couch-pillows, all linked it to the dozen other rooms +that occupied the same relative ground-floor corners in a dozen other +houses. Some of them had more books, some ran to handsome photographs, +some afforded fads in old furniture; but it was only a question of more +or less. It looked utterly impersonal to-day; its very atmosphere was +artificial, typical, a pretended self-sufficiency. + +How many years more should she live in it--three, nine, thirteen? The +tide of girls would ebb and flow with every June and September; eighteen +to twenty-two would ring their changes through the terms, and she could +take her choice of the two methods of regarding them: she could insist +on a perennial interest in the separate personalities, and endure +weariness for the sake of an uncertain influence; or she could mass them +frankly as the student body, and confine the connection to marking their +class-room efforts and serving their meat in the dining-room. The latter +was at once more honest and more easy; all but the most ambitious or the +most conscientious came ta it sooner or later. + +The youngest among the assistants, themselves fresh from college, +mingled naturally enough with the students; they danced and skated and +enjoyed their girlish authority. The older women, seasoned to the life, +settled there indefinitely, identified themselves more or less with the +town, amused themselves with their little aristocracy of precedence, and +wove and interwove the complicated, slender strands of college gossip. +But a woman of barely thirty, too old for friendships with young girls, +too young to find her placid recreation in the stereotyped round of +social functions, that seemed so perfectly imitative of the normal and +yet so curiously unsuccessful at bottom--what was there for her? + +Her eyes were fixed on the hill-slope view that made her room +so desirable. It occurred to her that its changelessness was not +necessarily so attractive a characteristic as the local poets practised +themselves in assuring her. + +A light knock at the door recalled to her the utter lack of privacy +that put her at the mercy of laundress, sophomore, and expressman. She +regretted that she had not put up the little sign whose "_Please do not +disturb_" was her only means of defence. + +"Come!" she called shortly, and the tall girl in the green dress stood +in the open door. A strange sense of long acquaintance, a vague feeling +of familiarity, surprised the older woman. Her expression changed. + +"Come in," she said cordially. + +"I--am I disturbing you?" asked the girl doubtfully. She had a pile of +books on her arm; her trim jacket and hat, and something in the way she +held her armful, seemed curiously at variance with her tam-o'-shantered, +golf-caped friends. + +"I couldn't find out whether you had an office hour, and I didn't know +whether I ought to have sent in my name--it seemed so formal, when it is +only a moment I need to see you--" + +"Sit down," said the German assistant pleasantly. "What can I do for +you?" + +"I have been talking with Frulein Mller about my German, and she +says if you are willing to give me an outline for advanced work and an +examination later on, I can go into a higher division in a little while. +Languages are always easy for me, and I could go on much quicker." + +"Oh, certainly. I have thought more than once that you were wasting +your time. The class is too large and too slow. I will make you out +an outline and give it to you after class to-morrow," said the German +assistant promptly. "Meanwhile, won't you stay and make me a +little call? I will light the fire and make some tea, if that is an +inducement." + +"The invitation is inducement enough, I assure you," smiled the girl, +"but I must not stay to-day, I think. If you will let me come again, +when I have no work to bother you with, I should love to." + +There was something easily decisive in her manner, something very +different from the other students, who refused such invitations +awkwardly, eager to be pressed, and when finally assured of a sincere +welcome, prolonged their calls and talked about themselves into the +uncounted hours. Evidently she would not stay this time; evidently she +would like to come again. + +As the door closed behind her the German assistant dropped her cordial +smile, and sank back listlessly in her chair. + +"After all, she's only a girl!" she murmured. For almost an hour she sat +looking fixedly at the unlit logs, hardly conscious of the wasted time. +Much might have gone into that hour. There was tea for her at one of the +college houses--the hostess had a "day," and went so far as to aspire +to the exclusive serving of a certain kind of tinned fancy biscuit every +Friday--if she wanted to drop in. This hostess invited favored students +to meet the faculty and townspeople on these occasions, and the +two latter classes were expected to effect a social fusion with the +former--which linked it, to some minds, a little too obviously with +professional duties. + +She might call on the head of her department, who was suffering from +some slight indisposition, and receive minute advice as to the conduct +of her classes, mingled with general criticism of various colleagues +and their methods. She might make a number of calls; but if there is one +situation in which the futility of these social mockeries becomes most +thoroughly obvious, it is the situation presented by an attempt to +imitate the conventional society life in a woman's college. And yet--she +had gone over the whole question so often--what a desert of awkwardness +and learned provincialism such a college would be without the attempt! +How often she had cordially agreed to the statement that it was +precisely because of its insistence upon this connection with the forms +and relations of normal life that her college was so successfully free +from the tomboyishness or the priggishness or the gaucherie of some of +the others! And yet its very success came from begging the question, +after all. + +She shook her head impatiently. A strong odor of boiling chocolate +crept through the transom. Somebody began to practise a monotonous +accompaniment on the guitar. Over her head a series of startling bumps +and jarring falls suggested a troupe of baby elephants practising for +their first appearance in public. The German assistant set her teeth. + +"Before I die," she announced to her image in the glass, "I propose to +inquire flatly of Miss Burgess if she _does_ pile her furniture in +a heap and slide down it on her toboggan! There is no other logical +explanation of that horrible disturbance." + +The face in the glass caught her attention. It looked sallow, with +lines under the eyes. The hair rolled back a little too severely for +the prevailing mode, and she recalled her late visitor's effectively +adjusted side-combs, her soft, dark waves. + +"They have time for it, evidently," she mused, "and after all it is +certainly more important than modal auxiliaries!" + +And for half an hour she twisted and looped and coiled, between the +chiffonnier and a hand-glass, fairly flushing with pleasure at the +result. + +"Now," she said, looking cheerfully at a pile of written papers, "I'll +take a walk, I think--a real walk." And till dinner-time she tramped +some of the old roads of her college days--more girlish than those days +had found her, lighter-footed, she thought, than before. + +The flush was still in her cheeks as she served her hungry tableful, and +she could not fail to catch the meaning of their frank stares. Pausing +in the parlor door to answer a question, she overheard a bit of +conversation: + +"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 look +older than she is. That red waist she wears in the evening is awfully +becoming." + +"Yes, I hate her in dark things." + +The regret that she had not found time to put on the red waist was so +instant and keen that she laughed at herself when alone in her room. She +moved vaguely about, aimlessly changing the position of the furniture. +How absurd! To do one's hair differently, and take a long walk, and feel +as if an old life were somehow far behind one! + +Later she found herself before her desk, hunting for her foreign +letter-paper, and once started, her pen flew. There were long meditative +lapses, 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 fat +brown-stamped envelope. The night-watchman chuckled as he watched the +head shrouded in the golf-cape hood bend a moment over the little white +square. + +"Maybe it's one o' the maids, maybe it's one o' the teachers, maybe it's +one o' the girls," he confided to his lantern; "they're all alike, come +to that! An' a good thing, too!" + +In the morning the German assistant dismissed her last class early and +took train for Springfield. On the way to the station a deferential +clerk from the bookshop waylaid her. + +"One moment, please. Those books you spoke of. Mr. Hartwell's library +is up at auction and we're sending a man to buy to-day. If you could get +the whole set for twenty-five dollars--" + +She smiled and shook her head. "I've changed my mind, thank you--I can't +afford it. Yes, I suppose it is a bargain, but books are such a trouble +to carry about, you know. No, I don't think of anything else." + +What freedom, what a strange baseless exhilaration! Suppose--suppose +it was all a mistake, and she should wake back to the old stubborn, +perfunctory reality! Perhaps it was better, saner--that quiet +taken-for-granted existence. Perhaps she regretted--but even with the +half-fear at her heart she laughed at that. If wake she must, she loved +the 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 were +all discussing her, wondering at her changed face, her fresh, becoming +clothes; they decided that she had had money left her. + +"Some of my girls saw you shopping in Springfield last Saturday--they +say 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, you +look so well in it. Did you know Professor Riggs spoke of your hat with +wild enthusiasm to Mrs. Austin Sunday? He said it was wonderful what a +difference a stylish hat made. Not that he meant, of course--Well, it's +lovely 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," she +said, "it all depends on what you want, you know." + +For the first week she moved in a kind of exaltation. It was partly that +her glass showed her a different woman: soft-eyed, with cheeks tinted +from the long, restless walks through the spring that was coming on with +every warm, greening day. The excitement of the letter hung over her. +She pictured her announcement, Frulein Mller'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 not +sick, then?' + +"'Only of teaching, Frulein.' + +"'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 not +decent. She grew satiric. How embarrassing for him to read such a letter +in the bosom of an affectionate, flaxen-haired family! At least, she +would never know how he really felt, thank Heaven. And what was left for +her then? To her own mind she had burned her bridges already. She was as +far from this place in fancy as if the miles stretched veritably between +them. And yet she knew no other life. She knew no other men. He was the +only one. In a flash of shame it came over her that a woman with more +experience would never have written such a letter. Everybody knew +that men forget, change, easily replace first loves. Nobody but such a +cloistered, academic spinster as she would have trusted a seven years' +promise. This was another result of such lives as they led--such +helpless, provincial women. Her resentment grew against the place. It +had 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 accusing +shame, her cheeks flaming under her wide, dark hat, her quick step +more sweeping than she knew, her eyes on the ground, she just escaped +collision with a suddenly looming masculine figure. A hasty apology, a +startled glance of appeal, a quick breath that parted her lips, and she +was past the stranger. But not before she had caught in his eyes a look +that quickened her heart, that soothed her angry humility. The sudden +sincere admiration, the involuntary tribute to her charm, was new to +her, but the instinct of countless generations made it as plain and as +much her prerogative as if she had been the most successful dbutante. +She was not, then, an object of pity, to be treasured for the sake of +the old days; other men, too--the impulse outstripped thought, but she +caught up with it. + +"How dreadful!" she murmured, with a consciousness of undreamed depths +in herself. "Of course he is the only one--the only one!" and across the +water she begged his forgiveness. + +But through all her agony of doubt in the days that followed, one shame +was miraculously removed, one hope sang faintly beneath: she, too, had +her power! A glance in the street had called her from one army of her +sisters to the other, and the difference was inestimable. + +Her classes stared at her with nave admiration. The girls in the house +begged for her as a chaperon to Amherst entertainments, and sulked +when a report that the young hosts found her too attractive to enable +strangers to distinguish readily between her and her charges rendered +another selection advisable. The fact that her interest in them was +fitful, sometimes making her merry and intimate, sometimes relegating +them to a connection purely professional, only left her more interesting +to them; and boxes of flowers, respectful solicitations to spreads, and +tempting invitations to long drives through the lengthening afternoons +began to elect her to an obvious popularity. Once it would have meant +much to her; she marvelled now at the little shade of jealousy with +which her colleagues assured her of it. How long must she wait? When +would life be real again? + +She seemed to herself to move in a dream that heightened and strained +quicker as it neared an inevitable shock of waking--to what? Even at the +best, to what? Even supposing that--she put it boldly, as if it had been +another woman--she should marry the man who had asked her seven years +ago, what was there in the very obvious future thus assured her that +could match the hopes her heart held out? How could it be at once +the golden harbor, the peaceful end of hurried, empty years, and the +delicious, 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 where +the mail lay spread, coloring at a foreign stamp, paling with the +disappointment, her hope grew fainter. He dared not write and tell her. +It was over. Violet shadows darkened her eyes; a feverish flush made +her, as it grew and faded at the slightest warning, more girlish than +ever. + +But the young life about her seemed only to mock her own late weakened +impulse. It was not the same. She was playing heavy stakes: they hardly +realized the game. All but one, they irritated her. This one, since +her first short call, had come and come again. No explanations, no +confidences, had passed between them; their sympathy, deep-rooted, +expressed itself perfectly in the ordinary conventional tone of two +reserved if congenial natures. The girl did not discuss herself, the +woman dared not. They talked of books, music, travel; never, as if by +tacit agreement, of any of the countless possible personalities in a +place so given to personal discussion. + +She could not have told how she knew that the girl had come to college +to please a mother whose great regret was to have missed such training, +nor did she remember when her incurious friend had learned her tense +determination of flight; she could have sworn that she had never spoken +of it. Sometimes, so perfectly did they appear to understand each other +beneath an indifferent conversation, it seemed to her that the words +must be the merest symbols, and that the girl who always caught her +lightest shade of meaning knew to exactness her alternate hope and fear, +the rudderless tossing toward and from her taunting harbor-light. + +They sat by an open window, breathing in the moist air from the fresh, +upturned earth. The gardeners were working over the sprouting beds; the +sun came in warm and sweet. + +"Three weeks ago it was almost cold at this time," said the girl. "In +the springtime I give up going home, and love the place. But two years +more--two years!" + +"Do you really mind it so much?" + +"I think what I mind the most is that I don't like it more," said the +girl slowly. "Mamma wanted it so. She really loved study. I don't, but +if I did--I should love it more than this. This would seem so childish. +And if I just wanted a good time, why, then this would seem such a lot +of trouble. All the good things here seem--seem remedies!" + +The older woman laughed nervously. Three weeks--three weeks and no word! + +"You will be making epigrams, my dear, if you don't take care," she +said lightly. "But you're going to finish just the same? The girls like +you, your work is good; you ought to stay." + +The girl flashed a look of surprise at her. It was her only hint of +sympathy. + +"You advise me to?" she asked quietly. + +"I think it would be a pity to disappoint your mother," with a light +hand on her shoulder. "You are so young--four years is very, little. Of +course you could do the work in half the time, but you admit that you +are not an ardent student. If nobody came here but the girls that really +needed to, we shouldn't have the reputation that we have. The girls to +whom this place means the last word in learning and the last grace of +social life are estimable young women, but not so pleasant to meet as +you." + +Three weeks--but he had waited seven years! + +"I am very childish," said the girl. "Of course I will stay. And some +of it I like very much. It's only that mamma doesn't understand. She +overestimates it so. Somehow, the more complete it is, the more like +everything else, the more you have to find fault with on all sides. I'd +rather have come when mamma was a girl." + +"I see. I have thought that, too." + +Ah, fool, give up your senseless hope! You had your chance--you lost it. +Fate cannot stop and wait while you grow wise. + +"When that shadow covers the hill, I will give it up forever. Then I +will write to Henry's wife and ask her to let me come and help take care +of the children. She will like it, and I can get tutoring if I want +it. I will make the children love me, and there will be a place where I +shall be wanted and can help," she thought. + +The shadow slipped lower. The fresh turf steeped in the last rays, the +birds sang, the warming earth seemed to have touched the very core of +spring. Her hopes had answered the eager years, but her miracle was too +wonderful to be. + +A light knock at the door, and a maid came toward her, tray in hand. She +lifted the card carelessly--her heart dropped a moment and beat in +hard, slow throbs. Her eyes filled with tears; her cheeks were hot and +brilliant. + +"I will be there in a moment." How deep her voice sounded! + +The girl slipped by her. + +"I was going anyway," she said softly. "Good-by! Don't touch your +hair--it's just right." + +She did not wait for an answer, but went out. As she passed by +the little reception-room a tall, eager man made toward her with +outstretched hands. Her voice trembled as she laughed. + +"No, no--I'm not the one," she murmured, "but she--she's coming!" + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Reversion To Type, by Josephine Daskam + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A REVERSION TO TYPE *** + +***** This file should be named 23364-8.txt or 23364-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/3/3/6/23364/ + +Produced by David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: A Reversion To Type + +Author: Josephine Daskam + +Release Date: November 6, 2007 [EBook #23364] +Last Updated: March 8, 2018 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A REVERSION TO TYPE *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + +</pre> + <div style="height: 8em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h1> + A REVERSION TO TYPE + </h1> + <h2> + By Josephine Daskam <br /><br /> Copyright, 1903, by Charles Scribner's Sons + </h2> + <p> + <br /><br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + She had never felt so tired of it all, it seemed to her. The sun streamed + hot across the backs of the shining seats into her eyes, but she was too + tired to get the window-pole. She watched the incoming class listlessly, + wondering whether it would be worth while to ask one of them to close the + shutter. They chattered and giggled and bustled in, rattling the chairs + about, and begging one another's pardon vociferously, with that insistent + politeness which marks a sharply defined stage in the social evolution of + the young girl. They irritated her excessively—these little airs and + graces. She opened her book with a snap, and began to call the roll + sharply. + </p> + <p> + Midway up the room sat a tall, dark girl, not handsome, but noticeably + well dressed. She looked politely at her questioner when spoken to, but + seemed as far in spirit as the distant trees toward which she directed her + attention when not particularly addressed. She seemed to have a certain + personality, a self-possession, a source of interest other than + collegiate; and this held her apart from the others in the mind of the + woman who sat before the desk. + </p> + <p> + What was that girl thinking of, she wondered, as she called another name + and glanced at the book to gather material for a question. What a perfect + taste had combined that dark, brocaded vest with the dull, rough cloth of + the suit—and she dressed her hair so well! She had a beautiful band + of pearls on one finger: was it an engagement-ring? No, that would be a + solitaire. + </p> + <p> + And all this time she called names from the interminable list, and + mechanically corrected the mistakes of their owners. Her eyes went back to + the girl in the middle row, who turned her head and yawned a little. They + took their education very easily, these maidens. + </p> + <p> + How she had saved and denied herself, and even consented to the + indebtedness she so hated, to gain that coveted German winter! And how + delightful it had been! + </p> + <p> + Almost she saw again the dear home of that blessed year: the kindly + housemother; the chubby <i>Mädchen</i> who knitted her a silk purse, and + cried when she left; the father with his beloved 'cello and his deep, + honest voice. + </p> + <p> + How cunning the little Bertha had been! How pleasant it was to hear her + gay little voice when one came down the shady street!”<i>Da ist sie, ja!</i>” + she would call to her mother, and then Hermann would come up to her with + his hands outstretched. Had she had a hard day? Was the lecture good? How + brown his beard was, and how deep and faithful his brown eyes were! And he + used to sing—why were there no bass voices in the States?“<i>Kennst + du das Land</i>” he used to sing, and his mother cried softly to herself + for pleasure. And once she herself had cried a little. + </p> + <p> + “No,” she said to the girl who was reciting, “no, it takes the dative. I + cannot seem to impress sufficiently on your minds the necessity for + learning that list thoroughly. You may translate now.” + </p> + <p> + And they translated. How they drawled it over, the beautiful, rich German. + Hermann had begged so, but she had felt differently then. She had loved + her work in anticipation. To marry and settle down—she was not + ready. It would be so good to be independent. And now—But it was too + late. That was years ago. Hermann must have found some yellow-braided, + blue-eyed Dorothea by this—some <i>Mädchen</i> who cared not for + calculus and Hebrew, but only to be what her mother had been, wife and + house-mother. But this was treason. Our grandmothers had thought that. + </p> + <p> + She looked at the girl in the middle row. What beautiful hair she had! + What an idiot she was to give up four years of her life to this round of + work and play and pretence of living! Oh, to go back to Germany—to + see Bertha and her mother again, and hear the father's 'cello! Hermann had + loved her so! He had said, so quietly and yet so surely: “But thou wilt + come back, my heart's own. And always I wait here for thee. Make me not + wait long!” He had seemed too quiet then—too slow and too easily + content. She had wanted quicker, busier, more individual life. And now her + heart said, “O fool!” + </p> + <p> + Was it too late? Suppose she should go, after all? Suppose she should go, + and all should be as it had been, only a little older, a little more quiet + and peaceful? The very fancy filled her heart with sudden calm. A love so + deep and sure, so broad and sweet—could it not dignify any woman's + life? And she had been thought worthy and had refused this love! O fool! + </p> + <p> + Suppose she went and found—her heart beat too quickly, and her face + flushed. She called on the bright girl in the front row. + </p> + <p> + “And what have <i>you</i> learned?” she said. + </p> + <p> + The girl coughed importantly. “It is a poem of Goethe's,” she announced in + her high, satisfied voice. “<i>Kennst du das Land</i>” + </p> + <p> + “That will do,” said the German assistant. “I fear we shall not have time + for it to-day. The hour is up. You may go on with the translation for + to-morrow.” And as the class rose with a growing clamor she realized that + though she had been thinking steadily in German, she had been talking in + English. So that was why they had comprehended so well and answered so + readily! And yet she was too glad to be annoyed at the slip. There were + other things: her life was not a German class! + </p> + <p> + As the girls crowded out, one stopped by the desk. She laid her hand with + the pearl band on the third finger on the teacher's arm. “You look tired,” + she said. “I hope you're not ill?” + </p> + <p> + “Ill?” said the woman at the desk. “I never felt better. I've been + neglecting my classes, I fear, in the study of your green gown. It is so + very pretty.” + </p> + <p> + The girl smiled and colored a little. + </p> + <p> + “I'm glad you like it,” she said. “I like it, too.” Then, with a sudden + feeling of friendship, an odd sense of intimacy, a quick impulse of common + femininity, she added: + </p> + <p> + “I've had some good times in this dress. Wearing it up here makes me + remember them very strangely. It's queer, what a difference it makes—” + She stopped and looked questioningly at the older woman. + </p> + <p> + But the German assistant smiled at her. “Yes,” she said, “it is. And when + you have been teaching seven years the difference becomes very apparent.” + She gathered up her books, still smiling in a reminiscent way. And as she + went out of the door, she looked back at the glaring, sunny room as if + already it were far behind her, as if already she felt the house-mother's + kiss, and heard the 'cello, and saw Klara's tiny daughter standing by the + door, throwing kisses, calling, “<i>Da ist sie, ja!</i>” + </p> + <p> + Lost in the dream, her eyes fixed absently, she stumbled against her + fellow-assistant, who was making for the room she had just left. + </p> + <p> + “I beg your pardon—I wasn't looking. Oh, it's you!” she murmured + vaguely. Her fellow-assistant had a headache, and forty-five written + papers to correct. She had just heard, too, a cutting criticism of her + work made by the self-appointed faculty critic; the criticism was cleverly + worded, and had just enough truth to fly quickly and hurt her with the + head of her department. So she was not in the best of tempers. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, it's I,” she said crossly. “If you had knocked these papers an inch + farther, I should have invited you to correct them. If you go about in + that abstracted way much longer, my dear, Miss Selbourne will inform the + world (on the very best authority) that you're in love.” + </p> + <p> + “I? What nonsense!” + </p> + <p> + It was a ridiculous thing to say, and she flushed angrily at herself. It + was only a joke, of course. + </p> + <p> + The other woman laughed shortly. + </p> + <p> + “Dear me! I really believe you are!” she exclaimed. “The girls were saying + at breakfast that Professor Tredick was ruining himself in violets + yesterday—so it was for you!” and she went into the lecture-room. + </p> + <p> + A chattering crowd of girls closed in behind her. One voice rose above the + rest: + </p> + <p> + “Well, I don't know what you call it, then. He skated with her all the + winter, and at the Dickinson party they sat on one sofa for an hour and + talked steadily!” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, nonsense! She skates beautifully, that's all.” + </p> + <p> + “She sits on a sofa beautifully, too.” A burst of laughter, and the door + closed. + </p> + <p> + The German assistant smiled satirically. It was all of a piece. At least, + the younger women were perfectly frank about it: they did not feel + themselves forced to employ sarcasm in their references; it was not + necessary for them to appear to have definitely chosen this life in + preference to any other. Four years was little to lend to such an + experiment. But the older women, who sat on those prim little platforms + year after year—a sudden curiosity possessed her to know how many of + them were really satisfied. + </p> + <p> + Could it be that they had preferred—actually preferred—But she + had, herself, three years ago. She shook her head decidedly. “Not for nine + years, not for nine!” she murmured, as she caught through the heavy door a + familiar voice raised to emphasize some French phrase. + </p> + <p> + And yet, somebody must teach them. They could not be born with foreign + idioms and historical dates and mathematical formulae in their little + heads. She herself deplored the modern tendency that sent a changing drift + of young teachers through the colleges, to learn at the expense of the + students a soon relinquished profession. But how ridiculous the position + of the women who prided themselves on the steadiness and continuity of + their service! Surely they must find it an empty success at times. They + must regret. + </p> + <p> + She was passing through the chapel. Two scrubbing-women were straightening + the chairs, their backs turned to her. + </p> + <p> + “From all I hear,” said one, with a chuckle and a sly glance, “we'll be + afther gettin' our invitations soon.” + </p> + <p> + “An' to what?” demanded the other quickly. + </p> + <p> + “Sure, they say it's a weddin'.” + </p> + <p> + “Ah, now, hush yer noise, Mary Nolan; 'tis no such thing. I've had enough + o' husbands. I know when I'm doin' well, an' that's as I am!” + </p> + <p> + “'Tis strange that the men sh'd think different, now, but they do!” + </p> + <p> + They laughed heartily and long. The German assistant looked at the broad + backs meditatively. Just now they seemed to her more consistent than any + other women in the great building. + </p> + <p> + She walked quickly across the greening campus. The close-set brick + buildings seemed to press up against her; every window stood for some + crowded, narrow room, filled with books and tea-cups and clothes and + photographs—hundreds of them, and all alike. In her own room she + tried to reason herself out of this intolerable depression, to realize the + advantages of a quiet life in what was surely the same pleasant, cultured + atmosphere to which she had so eagerly looked forward three years ago. Her + room was large, well furnished, perfectly heated; and if the condition of + her closet would have appeared nothing short of appalling to a + householder, that condition was owing to the hopeless exigencies of the + occasion. With the exception of that whited sepulchre, all was neat, + artistic, eminently habitable. She surveyed it critically: the “Mona + Lisa,” the large “Melrose Abbey,” the Burne-Jones draperies, and the + “Blessed Damozel” that spread a placid if monotonous culture through the + rooms of educated single women. A proper appreciation of polished wood, + the sanitary and aesthetic values of the open fire, a certain scheme in + couch-pillows, all linked it to the dozen other rooms that occupied the + same relative ground-floor corners in a dozen other houses. Some of them + had more books, some ran to handsome photographs, some afforded fads in + old furniture; but it was only a question of more or less. It looked + utterly impersonal to-day; its very atmosphere was artificial, typical, a + pretended self-sufficiency. + </p> + <p> + How many years more should she live in it—three, nine, thirteen? The + tide of girls would ebb and flow with every June and September; eighteen + to twenty-two would ring their changes through the terms, and she could + take her choice of the two methods of regarding them: she could insist on + a perennial interest in the separate personalities, and endure weariness + for the sake of an uncertain influence; or she could mass them frankly as + the student body, and confine the connection to marking their class-room + efforts and serving their meat in the dining-room. The latter was at once + more honest and more easy; all but the most ambitious or the most + conscientious came ta it sooner or later. + </p> + <p> + The youngest among the assistants, themselves fresh from college, mingled + naturally enough with the students; they danced and skated and enjoyed + their girlish authority. The older women, seasoned to the life, settled + there indefinitely, identified themselves more or less with the town, + amused themselves with their little aristocracy of precedence, and wove + and interwove the complicated, slender strands of college gossip. But a + woman of barely thirty, too old for friendships with young girls, too + young to find her placid recreation in the stereotyped round of social + functions, that seemed so perfectly imitative of the normal and yet so + curiously unsuccessful at bottom—what was there for her? + </p> + <p> + Her eyes were fixed on the hill-slope view that made her room so + desirable. It occurred to her that its changelessness was not necessarily + so attractive a characteristic as the local poets practised themselves in + assuring her. + </p> + <p> + A light knock at the door recalled to her the utter lack of privacy that + put her at the mercy of laundress, sophomore, and expressman. She + regretted that she had not put up the little sign whose “<i>Please do not + disturb</i>” was her only means of defence. + </p> + <p> + “Come!” she called shortly, and the tall girl in the green dress stood in + the open door. A strange sense of long acquaintance, a vague feeling of + familiarity, surprised the older woman. Her expression changed. + </p> + <p> + “Come in,” she said cordially. + </p> + <p> + “I—am I disturbing you?” asked the girl doubtfully. She had a pile + of books on her arm; her trim jacket and hat, and something in the way she + held her armful, seemed curiously at variance with her tam-o'-shantered, + golf-caped friends. + </p> + <p> + “I couldn't find out whether you had an office hour, and I didn't know + whether I ought to have sent in my name—it seemed so formal, when it + is only a moment I need to see you—” + </p> + <p> + “Sit down,” said the German assistant pleasantly. “What can I do for you?” + </p> + <p> + “I have been talking with Fräulein Müller about my German, and she says if + you are willing to give me an outline for advanced work and an examination + later on, I can go into a higher division in a little while. Languages are + always easy for me, and I could go on much quicker.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, certainly. I have thought more than once that you were wasting your + time. The class is too large and too slow. I will make you out an outline + and give it to you after class to-morrow,” said the German assistant + promptly. “Meanwhile, won't you stay and make me a little call? I will + light the fire and make some tea, if that is an inducement.” + </p> + <p> + “The invitation is inducement enough, I assure you,” smiled the girl, “but + I must not stay to-day, I think. If you will let me come again, when I + have no work to bother you with, I should love to.” + </p> + <p> + There was something easily decisive in her manner, something very + different from the other students, who refused such invitations awkwardly, + eager to be pressed, and when finally assured of a sincere welcome, + prolonged their calls and talked about themselves into the uncounted + hours. Evidently she would not stay this time; evidently she would like to + come again. + </p> + <p> + As the door closed behind her the German assistant dropped her cordial + smile, and sank back listlessly in her chair. + </p> + <p> + “After all, she's only a girl!” she murmured. For almost an hour she sat + looking fixedly at the unlit logs, hardly conscious of the wasted time. + Much might have gone into that hour. There was tea for her at one of the + college houses—the hostess had a “day,” and went so far as to aspire + to the exclusive serving of a certain kind of tinned fancy biscuit every + Friday—if she wanted to drop in. This hostess invited favored + students to meet the faculty and townspeople on these occasions, and the + two latter classes were expected to effect a social fusion with the former—which + linked it, to some minds, a little too obviously with professional duties. + </p> + <p> + She might call on the head of her department, who was suffering from some + slight indisposition, and receive minute advice as to the conduct of her + classes, mingled with general criticism of various colleagues and their + methods. She might make a number of calls; but if there is one situation + in which the futility of these social mockeries becomes most thoroughly + obvious, it is the situation presented by an attempt to imitate the + conventional society life in a woman's college. And yet—she had gone + over the whole question so often—what a desert of awkwardness and + learned provincialism such a college would be without the attempt! How + often she had cordially agreed to the statement that it was precisely + because of its insistence upon this connection with the forms and + relations of normal life that her college was so successfully free from + the tomboyishness or the priggishness or the gaucherie of some of the + others! And yet its very success came from begging the question, after + all. + </p> + <p> + She shook her head impatiently. A strong odor of boiling chocolate crept + through the transom. Somebody began to practise a monotonous accompaniment + on the guitar. Over her head a series of startling bumps and jarring falls + suggested a troupe of baby elephants practising for their first appearance + in public. The German assistant set her teeth. + </p> + <p> + “Before I die,” she announced to her image in the glass, “I propose to + inquire flatly of Miss Burgess if she <i>does</i> pile her furniture in a + heap and slide down it on her toboggan! There is no other logical + explanation of that horrible disturbance.” + </p> + <p> + The face in the glass caught her attention. It looked sallow, with lines + under the eyes. The hair rolled back a little too severely for the + prevailing mode, and she recalled her late visitor's effectively adjusted + side-combs, her soft, dark waves. + </p> + <p> + “They have time for it, evidently,” she mused, “and after all it is + certainly more important than modal auxiliaries!” + </p> + <p> + And for half an hour she twisted and looped and coiled, between the + chiffonnier and a hand-glass, fairly flushing with pleasure at the result. + </p> + <p> + “Now,” she said, looking cheerfully at a pile of written papers, “I'll + take a walk, I think—a real walk.” And till dinner-time she tramped + some of the old roads of her college days—more girlish than those + days had found her, lighter-footed, she thought, than before. + </p> + <p> + The flush was still in her cheeks as she served her hungry tableful, and + she could not fail to catch the meaning of their frank stares. Pausing in + the parlor door to answer a question, she overheard a bit of conversation: + </p> + <p> + “Doesn't she look well with her hair low? Quite stunning, I think.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, indeed. If only she wouldn't dress so old! It makes her look older + than she is. That red waist she wears in the evening is awfully becoming.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, I hate her in dark things.” + </p> + <p> + The regret that she had not found time to put on the red waist was so + instant and keen that she laughed at herself when alone in her room. She + moved vaguely about, aimlessly changing the position of the furniture. How + absurd! To do one's hair differently, and take a long walk, and feel as if + an old life were somehow far behind one! + </p> + <p> + Later she found herself before her desk, hunting for her foreign + letter-paper, and once started, her pen flew. There were long meditative + lapses, 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 fat + brown-stamped envelope. The night-watchman chuckled as he watched the head + shrouded in the golf-cape hood bend a moment over the little white square. + </p> + <p> + “Maybe it's one o' the maids, maybe it's one o' the teachers, maybe it's + one o' the girls,” he confided to his lantern; “they're all alike, come to + that! An' a good thing, too!” + </p> + <p> + In the morning the German assistant dismissed her last class early and + took train for Springfield. On the way to the station a deferential clerk + from the bookshop waylaid her. + </p> + <p> + “One moment, please. Those books you spoke of. Mr. Hartwell's library is + up at auction and we're sending a man to buy to-day. If you could get the + whole set for twenty-five dollars—” + </p> + <p> + She smiled and shook her head. “I've changed my mind, thank you—I + can't afford it. Yes, I suppose it is a bargain, but books are such a + trouble to carry about, you know. No, I don't think of anything else.” + </p> + <p> + What freedom, what a strange baseless exhilaration! Suppose—suppose + it was all a mistake, and she should wake back to the old stubborn, + perfunctory reality! Perhaps it was better, saner—that quiet + taken-for-granted existence. Perhaps she regretted—but even with the + half-fear at her heart she laughed at that. If wake she must, she loved + the dream. How she trusted that man! “Always I will wait”—and he + would. But seven years! She threw the thought behind her. + </p> + <p> + The next days passed in a swift, confused flight. She knew they were all + discussing her, wondering at her changed face, her fresh, becoming + clothes; they decided that she had had money left her. + </p> + <p> + “Some of my girls saw you shopping in Springfield last Saturday—they + say 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, you + look so well in it. Did you know Professor Riggs spoke of your hat with + wild enthusiasm to Mrs. Austin Sunday? He said it was wonderful what a + difference a stylish hat made. Not that he meant, of course—Well, + it's lovely to be able to get what you want. Goodness knows, I wish I + could.” + </p> + <p> + The other laughed. “Oh, it's perfectly easy if you really want to,” she + said, “it all depends on what you want, you know.” + </p> + <p> + For the first week she moved in a kind of exaltation. It was partly that + her glass showed her a different woman: soft-eyed, with cheeks tinted from + the long, restless walks through the spring that was coming on with every + warm, greening day. The excitement of the letter hung over her. She + pictured her announcement, Fräulein Müller's amazed questions. + </p> + <p> + “'But—but I do not understand! You are not well?' + </p> + <p> + “'Perfectly, thank you.' + </p> + <p> + “'But I am perfectly satisfied: I do not wish to change. You are not sick, + then?' + </p> + <p> + “'Only of teaching, Fräulein.' + </p> + <p> + “'But the instructorship—I was going to recommend—do not be + alarmed; you shall have it surely!' + </p> + <p> + “'You are very kind, but I have taught long enough.' + </p> + <p> + “'Then you do not find another position? Are you to be—'” + </p> + <p> + 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 not + decent. She grew satiric. How embarrassing for him to read such a letter + in the bosom of an affectionate, flaxen-haired family! At least, she would + never know how he really felt, thank Heaven. And what was left for her + then? To her own mind she had burned her bridges already. She was as far + from this place in fancy as if the miles stretched veritably between them. + And yet she knew no other life. She knew no other men. He was the only + one. In a flash of shame it came over her that a woman with more + experience would never have written such a letter. Everybody knew that men + forget, change, easily replace first loves. Nobody but such a cloistered, + academic spinster as she would have trusted a seven years' promise. This + was another result of such lives as they led—such helpless, + provincial women. Her resentment grew against the place. It had made her a + fool. + </p> + <p> + 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 accusing shame, + her cheeks flaming under her wide, dark hat, her quick step more sweeping + than she knew, her eyes on the ground, she just escaped collision with a + suddenly looming masculine figure. A hasty apology, a startled glance of + appeal, a quick breath that parted her lips, and she was past the + stranger. But not before she had caught in his eyes a look that quickened + her heart, that soothed her angry humility. The sudden sincere admiration, + the involuntary tribute to her charm, was new to her, but the instinct of + countless generations made it as plain and as much her prerogative as if + she had been the most successful débutante. She was not, then, an object + of pity, to be treasured for the sake of the old days; other men, too—the + impulse outstripped thought, but she caught up with it. + </p> + <p> + “How dreadful!” she murmured, with a consciousness of undreamed depths in + herself. “Of course he is the only one—the only one!” and across the + water she begged his forgiveness. + </p> + <p> + But through all her agony of doubt in the days that followed, one shame + was miraculously removed, one hope sang faintly beneath: she, too, had her + power! A glance in the street had called her from one army of her sisters + to the other, and the difference was inestimable. + </p> + <p> + Her classes stared at her with naïve admiration. The girls in the house + begged for her as a chaperon to Amherst entertainments, and sulked when a + report that the young hosts found her too attractive to enable strangers + to distinguish readily between her and her charges rendered another + selection advisable. The fact that her interest in them was fitful, + sometimes making her merry and intimate, sometimes relegating them to a + connection purely professional, only left her more interesting to them; + and boxes of flowers, respectful solicitations to spreads, and tempting + invitations to long drives through the lengthening afternoons began to + elect her to an obvious popularity. Once it would have meant much to her; + she marvelled now at the little shade of jealousy with which her + colleagues assured her of it. How long must she wait? When would life be + real again? + </p> + <p> + She seemed to herself to move in a dream that heightened and strained + quicker as it neared an inevitable shock of waking—to what? Even at + the best, to what? Even supposing that—she put it boldly, as if it + had been another woman—she should marry the man who had asked her + seven years ago, what was there in the very obvious future thus assured + her that could match the hopes her heart held out? How could it be at once + the golden harbor, the peaceful end of hurried, empty years, and the + delicious, 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! + </p> + <p> + But every day, as she moved with tightened lips to the table where the + mail lay spread, coloring at a foreign stamp, paling with the + disappointment, her hope grew fainter. He dared not write and tell her. It + was over. Violet shadows darkened her eyes; a feverish flush made her, as + it grew and faded at the slightest warning, more girlish than ever. + </p> + <p> + But the young life about her seemed only to mock her own late weakened + impulse. It was not the same. She was playing heavy stakes: they hardly + realized the game. All but one, they irritated her. This one, since her + first short call, had come and come again. No explanations, no + confidences, had passed between them; their sympathy, deep-rooted, + expressed itself perfectly in the ordinary conventional tone of two + reserved if congenial natures. The girl did not discuss herself, the woman + dared not. They talked of books, music, travel; never, as if by tacit + agreement, of any of the countless possible personalities in a place so + given to personal discussion. + </p> + <p> + She could not have told how she knew that the girl had come to college to + please a mother whose great regret was to have missed such training, nor + did she remember when her incurious friend had learned her tense + determination of flight; she could have sworn that she had never spoken of + it. Sometimes, so perfectly did they appear to understand each other + beneath an indifferent conversation, it seemed to her that the words must + be the merest symbols, and that the girl who always caught her lightest + shade of meaning knew to exactness her alternate hope and fear, the + rudderless tossing toward and from her taunting harbor-light. + </p> + <p> + They sat by an open window, breathing in the moist air from the fresh, + upturned earth. The gardeners were working over the sprouting beds; the + sun came in warm and sweet. + </p> + <p> + “Three weeks ago it was almost cold at this time,” said the girl. “In the + springtime I give up going home, and love the place. But two years more—two + years!” + </p> + <p> + “Do you really mind it so much?” + </p> + <p> + “I think what I mind the most is that I don't like it more,” said the girl + slowly. “Mamma wanted it so. She really loved study. I don't, but if I did—I + should love it more than this. This would seem so childish. And if I just + wanted a good time, why, then this would seem such a lot of trouble. All + the good things here seem—seem remedies!” + </p> + <p> + The older woman laughed nervously. Three weeks—three weeks and no + word! + </p> + <p> + “You will be making epigrams, my dear, if you don't take care,” she said + lightly. “But you're going to finish just the same? The girls like you, + your work is good; you ought to stay.” + </p> + <p> + The girl flashed a look of surprise at her. It was her only hint of + sympathy. + </p> + <p> + “You advise me to?” she asked quietly. + </p> + <p> + “I think it would be a pity to disappoint your mother,” with a light hand + on her shoulder. “You are so young—four years is very, little. Of + course you could do the work in half the time, but you admit that you are + not an ardent student. If nobody came here but the girls that really + needed to, we shouldn't have the reputation that we have. The girls to + whom this place means the last word in learning and the last grace of + social life are estimable young women, but not so pleasant to meet as + you.” + </p> + <p> + Three weeks—but he had waited seven years! + </p> + <p> + “I am very childish,” said the girl. “Of course I will stay. And some of + it I like very much. It's only that mamma doesn't understand. She + overestimates it so. Somehow, the more complete it is, the more like + everything else, the more you have to find fault with on all sides. I'd + rather have come when mamma was a girl.” + </p> + <p> + “I see. I have thought that, too.” + </p> + <p> + Ah, fool, give up your senseless hope! You had your chance—you lost + it. Fate cannot stop and wait while you grow wise. + </p> + <p> + “When that shadow covers the hill, I will give it up forever. Then I will + write to Henry's wife and ask her to let me come and help take care of the + children. She will like it, and I can get tutoring if I want it. I will + make the children love me, and there will be a place where I shall be + wanted and can help,” she thought. + </p> + <p> + The shadow slipped lower. The fresh turf steeped in the last rays, the + birds sang, the warming earth seemed to have touched the very core of + spring. Her hopes had answered the eager years, but her miracle was too + wonderful to be. + </p> + <p> + A light knock at the door, and a maid came toward her, tray in hand. She + lifted the card carelessly—her heart dropped a moment and beat in + hard, slow throbs. Her eyes filled with tears; her cheeks were hot and + brilliant. + </p> + <p> + “I will be there in a moment.” How deep her voice sounded! + </p> + <p> + The girl slipped by her. + </p> + <p> + “I was going anyway,” she said softly. “Good-by! Don't touch your hair—it's + just right.” + </p> + <p> + She did not wait for an answer, but went out. As she passed by the little + reception-room a tall, eager man made toward her with outstretched hands. + Her voice trembled as she laughed. + </p> + <p> + “No, no—I'm not the one,” she murmured, “but she—she's + coming!” + </p> + <div style="height: 6em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Reversion To Type, by Josephine Daskam + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A REVERSION TO TYPE *** + +***** This file should be named 23364-h.htm or 23364-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/3/3/6/23364/ + +Produced by David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: A Reversion To Type + +Author: Josephine Daskam + +Release Date: November 6, 2007 [EBook #23364] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A REVERSION TO TYPE *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + + +A REVERSION TO TYPE + +By Josephine Daskam + +Copyright, 1903, by Charles Scribner's Sons + + +She had never felt so tired of it all, it seemed to her. The sun +streamed hot across the backs of the shining seats into her eyes, but +she was too tired to get the window-pole. She watched the incoming class +listlessly, wondering whether it would be worth while to ask one of +them to close the shutter. They chattered and giggled and bustled +in, rattling the chairs about, and begging one another's pardon +vociferously, with that insistent politeness which marks a sharply +defined stage in the social evolution of the young girl. They irritated +her excessively--these little airs and graces. She opened her book with +a snap, and began to call the roll sharply. + +Midway up the room sat a tall, dark girl, not handsome, but noticeably +well dressed. She looked politely at her questioner when spoken to, but +seemed as far in spirit as the distant trees toward which she directed +her attention when not particularly addressed. She seemed to have a +certain personality, a self-possession, a source of interest other than +collegiate; and this held her apart from the others in the mind of the +woman who sat before the desk. + +What was that girl thinking of, she wondered, as she called another +name and glanced at the book to gather material for a question. What a +perfect taste had combined that dark, brocaded vest with the dull, rough +cloth of the suit--and she dressed her hair so well! She had a beautiful +band of pearls on one finger: was it an engagement-ring? No, that would +be a solitaire. + +And all this time she called names from the interminable list, and +mechanically corrected the mistakes of their owners. Her eyes went back +to the girl in the middle row, who turned her head and yawned a little. +They took their education very easily, these maidens. + +How she had saved and denied herself, and even consented to the +indebtedness she so hated, to gain that coveted German winter! And how +delightful it had been! + +Almost she saw again the dear home of that blessed year: the kindly +housemother; the chubby _Maedchen_ who knitted her a silk purse, and +cried when she left; the father with his beloved 'cello and his deep, +honest voice. + +How cunning the little Bertha had been! How pleasant it was to hear her +gay little voice when one came down the shady street!"_Da ist sie, ja!_" +she would call to her mother, and then Hermann would come up to her with +his hands outstretched. Had she had a hard day? Was the lecture good? +How brown his beard was, and how deep and faithful his brown eyes +were! And he used to sing--why were there no bass voices in the +States?"_Kennst du das Land_" he used to sing, and his mother cried +softly to herself for pleasure. And once she herself had cried a little. + +"No," she said to the girl who was reciting, "no, it takes the dative. +I cannot seem to impress sufficiently on your minds the necessity for +learning that list thoroughly. You may translate now." + +And they translated. How they drawled it over, the beautiful, rich +German. Hermann had begged so, but she had felt differently then. She +had loved her work in anticipation. To marry and settle down--she was +not ready. It would be so good to be independent. And now--But it +was too late. That was years ago. Hermann must have found some +yellow-braided, blue-eyed Dorothea by this--some _Maedchen_ who cared not +for calculus and Hebrew, but only to be what her mother had been, wife +and house-mother. But this was treason. Our grandmothers had thought +that. + +She looked at the girl in the middle row. What beautiful hair she had! +What an idiot she was to give up four years of her life to this round of +work and play and pretence of living! Oh, to go back to Germany--to see +Bertha and her mother again, and hear the father's 'cello! Hermann had +loved her so! He had said, so quietly and yet so surely: "But thou wilt +come back, my heart's own. And always I wait here for thee. Make me +not wait long!" He had seemed too quiet then--too slow and too easily +content. She had wanted quicker, busier, more individual life. And now +her heart said, "O fool!" + +Was it too late? Suppose she should go, after all? Suppose she should +go, and all should be as it had been, only a little older, a little more +quiet and peaceful? The very fancy filled her heart with sudden calm. +A love so deep and sure, so broad and sweet--could it not dignify any +woman's life? And she had been thought worthy and had refused this love! +O fool! + +Suppose she went and found--her heart beat too quickly, and her face +flushed. She called on the bright girl in the front row. + +"And what have _you_ learned?" she said. + +The girl coughed importantly. "It is a poem of Goethe's," she announced +in her high, satisfied voice. "_Kennst du das Land_" + +"That will do," said the German assistant. "I fear we shall not have +time for it to-day. The hour is up. You may go on with the translation +for to-morrow." And as the class rose with a growing clamor she realized +that though she had been thinking steadily in German, she had been +talking in English. So that was why they had comprehended so well and +answered so readily! And yet she was too glad to be annoyed at the slip. +There were other things: her life was not a German class! + +As the girls crowded out, one stopped by the desk. She laid her hand +with the pearl band on the third finger on the teacher's arm. "You look +tired," she said. "I hope you're not ill?" + +"Ill?" said the woman at the desk. "I never felt better. I've been +neglecting my classes, I fear, in the study of your green gown. It is so +very pretty." + +The girl smiled and colored a little. + +"I'm glad you like it," she said. "I like it, too." Then, with a sudden +feeling of friendship, an odd sense of intimacy, a quick impulse of +common femininity, she added: + +"I've had some good times in this dress. Wearing it up here makes me +remember them very strangely. It's queer, what a difference it makes--" +She stopped and looked questioningly at the older woman. + +But the German assistant smiled at her. "Yes," she said, "it is. And +when you have been teaching seven years the difference becomes very +apparent." She gathered up her books, still smiling in a reminiscent +way. And as she went out of the door, she looked back at the glaring, +sunny room as if already it were far behind her, as if already she felt +the house-mother's kiss, and heard the 'cello, and saw Klara's tiny +daughter standing by the door, throwing kisses, calling, "_Da ist sie, +ja!_" + +Lost in the dream, her eyes fixed absently, she stumbled against her +fellow-assistant, who was making for the room she had just left. + +"I beg your pardon--I wasn't looking. Oh, it's you!" she murmured +vaguely. Her fellow-assistant had a headache, and forty-five written +papers to correct. She had just heard, too, a cutting criticism of +her work made by the self-appointed faculty critic; the criticism was +cleverly worded, and had just enough truth to fly quickly and hurt her +with the head of her department. So she was not in the best of tempers. + +"Yes, it's I," she said crossly. "If you had knocked these papers an +inch farther, I should have invited you to correct them. If you go about +in that abstracted way much longer, my dear, Miss Selbourne will inform +the world (on the very best authority) that you're in love." + +"I? What nonsense!" + +It was a ridiculous thing to say, and she flushed angrily at herself. It +was only a joke, of course. + +The other woman laughed shortly. + +"Dear me! I really believe you are!" she exclaimed. "The girls were +saying at breakfast that Professor Tredick was ruining himself +in violets yesterday--so it was for you!" and she went into the +lecture-room. + +A chattering crowd of girls closed in behind her. One voice rose above +the rest: + +"Well, I don't know what you call it, then. He skated with her all the +winter, and at the Dickinson party they sat on one sofa for an hour and +talked steadily!" + +"Oh, nonsense! She skates beautifully, that's all." + +"She sits on a sofa beautifully, too." A burst of laughter, and the door +closed. + +The German assistant smiled satirically. It was all of a piece. At +least, the younger women were perfectly frank about it: they did not +feel themselves forced to employ sarcasm in their references; it was +not necessary for them to appear to have definitely chosen this life +in preference to any other. Four years was little to lend to such an +experiment. But the older women, who sat on those prim little platforms +year after year--a sudden curiosity possessed her to know how many of +them were really satisfied. + +Could it be that they had preferred--actually preferred--But she had, +herself, three years ago. She shook her head decidedly. "Not for nine +years, not for nine!" she murmured, as she caught through the heavy door +a familiar voice raised to emphasize some French phrase. + +And yet, somebody must teach them. They could not be born with foreign +idioms and historical dates and mathematical formulae in their little +heads. She herself deplored the modern tendency that sent a changing +drift of young teachers through the colleges, to learn at the expense +of the students a soon relinquished profession. But how ridiculous +the position of the women who prided themselves on the steadiness and +continuity of their service! Surely they must find it an empty success +at times. They must regret. + +She was passing through the chapel. Two scrubbing-women were +straightening the chairs, their backs turned to her. + +"From all I hear," said one, with a chuckle and a sly glance, "we'll be +afther gettin' our invitations soon." + +"An' to what?" demanded the other quickly. + +"Sure, they say it's a weddin'." + +"Ah, now, hush yer noise, Mary Nolan; 'tis no such thing. I've had +enough o' husbands. I know when I'm doin' well, an' that's as I am!" + +"'Tis strange that the men sh'd think different, now, but they do!" + +They laughed heartily and long. The German assistant looked at the broad +backs meditatively. Just now they seemed to her more consistent than any +other women in the great building. + +She walked quickly across the greening campus. The close-set brick +buildings seemed to press up against her; every window stood for some +crowded, narrow room, filled with books and tea-cups and clothes and +photographs--hundreds of them, and all alike. In her own room she tried +to reason herself out of this intolerable depression, to realize +the advantages of a quiet life in what was surely the same pleasant, +cultured atmosphere to which she had so eagerly looked forward three +years ago. Her room was large, well furnished, perfectly heated; and +if the condition of her closet would have appeared nothing short of +appalling to a householder, that condition was owing to the hopeless +exigencies of the occasion. With the exception of that whited sepulchre, +all was neat, artistic, eminently habitable. She surveyed it critically: +the "Mona Lisa," the large "Melrose Abbey," the Burne-Jones draperies, +and the "Blessed Damozel" that spread a placid if monotonous culture +through the rooms of educated single women. A proper appreciation of +polished wood, the sanitary and aesthetic values of the open fire, a +certain scheme in couch-pillows, all linked it to the dozen other rooms +that occupied the same relative ground-floor corners in a dozen other +houses. Some of them had more books, some ran to handsome photographs, +some afforded fads in old furniture; but it was only a question of more +or less. It looked utterly impersonal to-day; its very atmosphere was +artificial, typical, a pretended self-sufficiency. + +How many years more should she live in it--three, nine, thirteen? The +tide of girls would ebb and flow with every June and September; eighteen +to twenty-two would ring their changes through the terms, and she could +take her choice of the two methods of regarding them: she could insist +on a perennial interest in the separate personalities, and endure +weariness for the sake of an uncertain influence; or she could mass them +frankly as the student body, and confine the connection to marking their +class-room efforts and serving their meat in the dining-room. The latter +was at once more honest and more easy; all but the most ambitious or the +most conscientious came ta it sooner or later. + +The youngest among the assistants, themselves fresh from college, +mingled naturally enough with the students; they danced and skated and +enjoyed their girlish authority. The older women, seasoned to the life, +settled there indefinitely, identified themselves more or less with the +town, amused themselves with their little aristocracy of precedence, and +wove and interwove the complicated, slender strands of college gossip. +But a woman of barely thirty, too old for friendships with young girls, +too young to find her placid recreation in the stereotyped round of +social functions, that seemed so perfectly imitative of the normal and +yet so curiously unsuccessful at bottom--what was there for her? + +Her eyes were fixed on the hill-slope view that made her room +so desirable. It occurred to her that its changelessness was not +necessarily so attractive a characteristic as the local poets practised +themselves in assuring her. + +A light knock at the door recalled to her the utter lack of privacy +that put her at the mercy of laundress, sophomore, and expressman. She +regretted that she had not put up the little sign whose "_Please do not +disturb_" was her only means of defence. + +"Come!" she called shortly, and the tall girl in the green dress stood +in the open door. A strange sense of long acquaintance, a vague feeling +of familiarity, surprised the older woman. Her expression changed. + +"Come in," she said cordially. + +"I--am I disturbing you?" asked the girl doubtfully. She had a pile of +books on her arm; her trim jacket and hat, and something in the way she +held her armful, seemed curiously at variance with her tam-o'-shantered, +golf-caped friends. + +"I couldn't find out whether you had an office hour, and I didn't know +whether I ought to have sent in my name--it seemed so formal, when it is +only a moment I need to see you--" + +"Sit down," said the German assistant pleasantly. "What can I do for +you?" + +"I have been talking with Fraeulein Mueller about my German, and she +says if you are willing to give me an outline for advanced work and an +examination later on, I can go into a higher division in a little while. +Languages are always easy for me, and I could go on much quicker." + +"Oh, certainly. I have thought more than once that you were wasting +your time. The class is too large and too slow. I will make you out +an outline and give it to you after class to-morrow," said the German +assistant promptly. "Meanwhile, won't you stay and make me a +little call? I will light the fire and make some tea, if that is an +inducement." + +"The invitation is inducement enough, I assure you," smiled the girl, +"but I must not stay to-day, I think. If you will let me come again, +when I have no work to bother you with, I should love to." + +There was something easily decisive in her manner, something very +different from the other students, who refused such invitations +awkwardly, eager to be pressed, and when finally assured of a sincere +welcome, prolonged their calls and talked about themselves into the +uncounted hours. Evidently she would not stay this time; evidently she +would like to come again. + +As the door closed behind her the German assistant dropped her cordial +smile, and sank back listlessly in her chair. + +"After all, she's only a girl!" she murmured. For almost an hour she sat +looking fixedly at the unlit logs, hardly conscious of the wasted time. +Much might have gone into that hour. There was tea for her at one of the +college houses--the hostess had a "day," and went so far as to aspire +to the exclusive serving of a certain kind of tinned fancy biscuit every +Friday--if she wanted to drop in. This hostess invited favored students +to meet the faculty and townspeople on these occasions, and the +two latter classes were expected to effect a social fusion with the +former--which linked it, to some minds, a little too obviously with +professional duties. + +She might call on the head of her department, who was suffering from +some slight indisposition, and receive minute advice as to the conduct +of her classes, mingled with general criticism of various colleagues +and their methods. She might make a number of calls; but if there is one +situation in which the futility of these social mockeries becomes most +thoroughly obvious, it is the situation presented by an attempt to +imitate the conventional society life in a woman's college. And yet--she +had gone over the whole question so often--what a desert of awkwardness +and learned provincialism such a college would be without the attempt! +How often she had cordially agreed to the statement that it was +precisely because of its insistence upon this connection with the forms +and relations of normal life that her college was so successfully free +from the tomboyishness or the priggishness or the gaucherie of some of +the others! And yet its very success came from begging the question, +after all. + +She shook her head impatiently. A strong odor of boiling chocolate +crept through the transom. Somebody began to practise a monotonous +accompaniment on the guitar. Over her head a series of startling bumps +and jarring falls suggested a troupe of baby elephants practising for +their first appearance in public. The German assistant set her teeth. + +"Before I die," she announced to her image in the glass, "I propose to +inquire flatly of Miss Burgess if she _does_ pile her furniture in +a heap and slide down it on her toboggan! There is no other logical +explanation of that horrible disturbance." + +The face in the glass caught her attention. It looked sallow, with +lines under the eyes. The hair rolled back a little too severely for +the prevailing mode, and she recalled her late visitor's effectively +adjusted side-combs, her soft, dark waves. + +"They have time for it, evidently," she mused, "and after all it is +certainly more important than modal auxiliaries!" + +And for half an hour she twisted and looped and coiled, between the +chiffonnier and a hand-glass, fairly flushing with pleasure at the +result. + +"Now," she said, looking cheerfully at a pile of written papers, "I'll +take a walk, I think--a real walk." And till dinner-time she tramped +some of the old roads of her college days--more girlish than those days +had found her, lighter-footed, she thought, than before. + +The flush was still in her cheeks as she served her hungry tableful, and +she could not fail to catch the meaning of their frank stares. Pausing +in the parlor door to answer a question, she overheard a bit of +conversation: + +"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 look +older than she is. That red waist she wears in the evening is awfully +becoming." + +"Yes, I hate her in dark things." + +The regret that she had not found time to put on the red waist was so +instant and keen that she laughed at herself when alone in her room. She +moved vaguely about, aimlessly changing the position of the furniture. +How absurd! To do one's hair differently, and take a long walk, and feel +as if an old life were somehow far behind one! + +Later she found herself before her desk, hunting for her foreign +letter-paper, and once started, her pen flew. There were long meditative +lapses, 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 fat +brown-stamped envelope. The night-watchman chuckled as he watched the +head shrouded in the golf-cape hood bend a moment over the little white +square. + +"Maybe it's one o' the maids, maybe it's one o' the teachers, maybe it's +one o' the girls," he confided to his lantern; "they're all alike, come +to that! An' a good thing, too!" + +In the morning the German assistant dismissed her last class early and +took train for Springfield. On the way to the station a deferential +clerk from the bookshop waylaid her. + +"One moment, please. Those books you spoke of. Mr. Hartwell's library +is up at auction and we're sending a man to buy to-day. If you could get +the whole set for twenty-five dollars--" + +She smiled and shook her head. "I've changed my mind, thank you--I can't +afford it. Yes, I suppose it is a bargain, but books are such a trouble +to carry about, you know. No, I don't think of anything else." + +What freedom, what a strange baseless exhilaration! Suppose--suppose +it was all a mistake, and she should wake back to the old stubborn, +perfunctory reality! Perhaps it was better, saner--that quiet +taken-for-granted existence. Perhaps she regretted--but even with the +half-fear at her heart she laughed at that. If wake she must, she loved +the 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 were +all discussing her, wondering at her changed face, her fresh, becoming +clothes; they decided that she had had money left her. + +"Some of my girls saw you shopping in Springfield last Saturday--they +say 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, you +look so well in it. Did you know Professor Riggs spoke of your hat with +wild enthusiasm to Mrs. Austin Sunday? He said it was wonderful what a +difference a stylish hat made. Not that he meant, of course--Well, it's +lovely 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," she +said, "it all depends on what you want, you know." + +For the first week she moved in a kind of exaltation. It was partly that +her glass showed her a different woman: soft-eyed, with cheeks tinted +from the long, restless walks through the spring that was coming on with +every 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 not +sick, 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 not +decent. She grew satiric. How embarrassing for him to read such a letter +in the bosom of an affectionate, flaxen-haired family! At least, she +would never know how he really felt, thank Heaven. And what was left for +her then? To her own mind she had burned her bridges already. She was as +far from this place in fancy as if the miles stretched veritably between +them. And yet she knew no other life. She knew no other men. He was the +only one. In a flash of shame it came over her that a woman with more +experience would never have written such a letter. Everybody knew +that men forget, change, easily replace first loves. Nobody but such a +cloistered, academic spinster as she would have trusted a seven years' +promise. This was another result of such lives as they led--such +helpless, provincial women. Her resentment grew against the place. It +had 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 accusing +shame, her cheeks flaming under her wide, dark hat, her quick step +more sweeping than she knew, her eyes on the ground, she just escaped +collision with a suddenly looming masculine figure. A hasty apology, a +startled glance of appeal, a quick breath that parted her lips, and she +was past the stranger. But not before she had caught in his eyes a look +that quickened her heart, that soothed her angry humility. The sudden +sincere admiration, the involuntary tribute to her charm, was new to +her, but the instinct of countless generations made it as plain and as +much 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 of +the old days; other men, too--the impulse outstripped thought, but she +caught up with it. + +"How dreadful!" she murmured, with a consciousness of undreamed depths +in herself. "Of course he is the only one--the only one!" and across the +water she begged his forgiveness. + +But through all her agony of doubt in the days that followed, one shame +was miraculously removed, one hope sang faintly beneath: she, too, had +her power! A glance in the street had called her from one army of her +sisters to the other, and the difference was inestimable. + +Her classes stared at her with naive admiration. The girls in the house +begged for her as a chaperon to Amherst entertainments, and sulked +when a report that the young hosts found her too attractive to enable +strangers to distinguish readily between her and her charges rendered +another selection advisable. The fact that her interest in them was +fitful, sometimes making her merry and intimate, sometimes relegating +them to a connection purely professional, only left her more interesting +to them; and boxes of flowers, respectful solicitations to spreads, and +tempting invitations to long drives through the lengthening afternoons +began to elect her to an obvious popularity. Once it would have meant +much to her; she marvelled now at the little shade of jealousy with +which her colleagues assured her of it. How long must she wait? When +would life be real again? + +She seemed to herself to move in a dream that heightened and strained +quicker as it neared an inevitable shock of waking--to what? Even at the +best, to what? Even supposing that--she put it boldly, as if it had been +another woman--she should marry the man who had asked her seven years +ago, what was there in the very obvious future thus assured her that +could match the hopes her heart held out? How could it be at once +the golden harbor, the peaceful end of hurried, empty years, and the +delicious, 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 where +the mail lay spread, coloring at a foreign stamp, paling with the +disappointment, her hope grew fainter. He dared not write and tell her. +It was over. Violet shadows darkened her eyes; a feverish flush made +her, as it grew and faded at the slightest warning, more girlish than +ever. + +But the young life about her seemed only to mock her own late weakened +impulse. It was not the same. She was playing heavy stakes: they hardly +realized the game. All but one, they irritated her. This one, since +her first short call, had come and come again. No explanations, no +confidences, had passed between them; their sympathy, deep-rooted, +expressed itself perfectly in the ordinary conventional tone of two +reserved if congenial natures. The girl did not discuss herself, the +woman dared not. They talked of books, music, travel; never, as if by +tacit agreement, of any of the countless possible personalities in a +place so given to personal discussion. + +She could not have told how she knew that the girl had come to college +to please a mother whose great regret was to have missed such training, +nor did she remember when her incurious friend had learned her tense +determination of flight; she could have sworn that she had never spoken +of it. Sometimes, so perfectly did they appear to understand each other +beneath an indifferent conversation, it seemed to her that the words +must be the merest symbols, and that the girl who always caught her +lightest shade of meaning knew to exactness her alternate hope and fear, +the rudderless tossing toward and from her taunting harbor-light. + +They sat by an open window, breathing in the moist air from the fresh, +upturned earth. The gardeners were working over the sprouting beds; the +sun came in warm and sweet. + +"Three weeks ago it was almost cold at this time," said the girl. "In +the springtime I give up going home, and love the place. But two years +more--two years!" + +"Do you really mind it so much?" + +"I think what I mind the most is that I don't like it more," said the +girl slowly. "Mamma wanted it so. She really loved study. I don't, but +if I did--I should love it more than this. This would seem so childish. +And if I just wanted a good time, why, then this would seem such a lot +of trouble. All the good things here seem--seem remedies!" + +The older woman laughed nervously. Three weeks--three weeks and no word! + +"You will be making epigrams, my dear, if you don't take care," she +said lightly. "But you're going to finish just the same? The girls like +you, your work is good; you ought to stay." + +The girl flashed a look of surprise at her. It was her only hint of +sympathy. + +"You advise me to?" she asked quietly. + +"I think it would be a pity to disappoint your mother," with a light +hand on her shoulder. "You are so young--four years is very, little. Of +course you could do the work in half the time, but you admit that you +are not an ardent student. If nobody came here but the girls that really +needed to, we shouldn't have the reputation that we have. The girls to +whom this place means the last word in learning and the last grace of +social life are estimable young women, but not so pleasant to meet as +you." + +Three weeks--but he had waited seven years! + +"I am very childish," said the girl. "Of course I will stay. And some +of it I like very much. It's only that mamma doesn't understand. She +overestimates it so. Somehow, the more complete it is, the more like +everything else, the more you have to find fault with on all sides. I'd +rather have come when mamma was a girl." + +"I see. I have thought that, too." + +Ah, fool, give up your senseless hope! You had your chance--you lost it. +Fate cannot stop and wait while you grow wise. + +"When that shadow covers the hill, I will give it up forever. Then I +will write to Henry's wife and ask her to let me come and help take care +of the children. She will like it, and I can get tutoring if I want +it. I will make the children love me, and there will be a place where I +shall be wanted and can help," she thought. + +The shadow slipped lower. The fresh turf steeped in the last rays, the +birds sang, the warming earth seemed to have touched the very core of +spring. Her hopes had answered the eager years, but her miracle was too +wonderful to be. + +A light knock at the door, and a maid came toward her, tray in hand. She +lifted the card carelessly--her heart dropped a moment and beat in +hard, slow throbs. Her eyes filled with tears; her cheeks were hot and +brilliant. + +"I will be there in a moment." How deep her voice sounded! + +The girl slipped by her. + +"I was going anyway," she said softly. "Good-by! Don't touch your +hair--it's just right." + +She did not wait for an answer, but went out. As she passed by +the little reception-room a tall, eager man made toward her with +outstretched hands. Her voice trembled as she laughed. + +"No, no--I'm not the one," she murmured, "but she--she's coming!" + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Reversion To Type, by Josephine Daskam + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A REVERSION TO TYPE *** + +***** This file should be named 23364.txt or 23364.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/3/3/6/23364/ + +Produced by David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: A Reversion To Type + +Author: Josephine Daskam + +Release Date: November 6, 2007 [EBook #23364] +Last Updated: March 8, 2018 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A REVERSION TO TYPE *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + +</pre> + <div style="height: 8em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h1> + A REVERSION TO TYPE + </h1> + <h2> + By Josephine Daskam <br /><br /> Copyright, 1903, by Charles Scribner's Sons + </h2> + <p> + <br /><br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + She had never felt so tired of it all, it seemed to her. The sun streamed + hot across the backs of the shining seats into her eyes, but she was too + tired to get the window-pole. She watched the incoming class listlessly, + wondering whether it would be worth while to ask one of them to close the + shutter. They chattered and giggled and bustled in, rattling the chairs + about, and begging one another's pardon vociferously, with that insistent + politeness which marks a sharply defined stage in the social evolution of + the young girl. They irritated her excessively—these little airs and + graces. She opened her book with a snap, and began to call the roll + sharply. + </p> + <p> + Midway up the room sat a tall, dark girl, not handsome, but noticeably + well dressed. She looked politely at her questioner when spoken to, but + seemed as far in spirit as the distant trees toward which she directed her + attention when not particularly addressed. She seemed to have a certain + personality, a self-possession, a source of interest other than + collegiate; and this held her apart from the others in the mind of the + woman who sat before the desk. + </p> + <p> + What was that girl thinking of, she wondered, as she called another name + and glanced at the book to gather material for a question. What a perfect + taste had combined that dark, brocaded vest with the dull, rough cloth of + the suit—and she dressed her hair so well! She had a beautiful band + of pearls on one finger: was it an engagement-ring? No, that would be a + solitaire. + </p> + <p> + And all this time she called names from the interminable list, and + mechanically corrected the mistakes of their owners. Her eyes went back to + the girl in the middle row, who turned her head and yawned a little. They + took their education very easily, these maidens. + </p> + <p> + How she had saved and denied herself, and even consented to the + indebtedness she so hated, to gain that coveted German winter! And how + delightful it had been! + </p> + <p> + Almost she saw again the dear home of that blessed year: the kindly + housemother; the chubby <i>Mädchen</i> who knitted her a silk purse, and + cried when she left; the father with his beloved 'cello and his deep, + honest voice. + </p> + <p> + How cunning the little Bertha had been! How pleasant it was to hear her + gay little voice when one came down the shady street!”<i>Da ist sie, ja!</i>” + she would call to her mother, and then Hermann would come up to her with + his hands outstretched. Had she had a hard day? Was the lecture good? How + brown his beard was, and how deep and faithful his brown eyes were! And he + used to sing—why were there no bass voices in the States?“<i>Kennst + du das Land</i>” he used to sing, and his mother cried softly to herself + for pleasure. And once she herself had cried a little. + </p> + <p> + “No,” she said to the girl who was reciting, “no, it takes the dative. I + cannot seem to impress sufficiently on your minds the necessity for + learning that list thoroughly. You may translate now.” + </p> + <p> + And they translated. How they drawled it over, the beautiful, rich German. + Hermann had begged so, but she had felt differently then. She had loved + her work in anticipation. To marry and settle down—she was not + ready. It would be so good to be independent. And now—But it was too + late. That was years ago. Hermann must have found some yellow-braided, + blue-eyed Dorothea by this—some <i>Mädchen</i> who cared not for + calculus and Hebrew, but only to be what her mother had been, wife and + house-mother. But this was treason. Our grandmothers had thought that. + </p> + <p> + She looked at the girl in the middle row. What beautiful hair she had! + What an idiot she was to give up four years of her life to this round of + work and play and pretence of living! Oh, to go back to Germany—to + see Bertha and her mother again, and hear the father's 'cello! Hermann had + loved her so! He had said, so quietly and yet so surely: “But thou wilt + come back, my heart's own. And always I wait here for thee. Make me not + wait long!” He had seemed too quiet then—too slow and too easily + content. She had wanted quicker, busier, more individual life. And now her + heart said, “O fool!” + </p> + <p> + Was it too late? Suppose she should go, after all? Suppose she should go, + and all should be as it had been, only a little older, a little more quiet + and peaceful? The very fancy filled her heart with sudden calm. A love so + deep and sure, so broad and sweet—could it not dignify any woman's + life? And she had been thought worthy and had refused this love! O fool! + </p> + <p> + Suppose she went and found—her heart beat too quickly, and her face + flushed. She called on the bright girl in the front row. + </p> + <p> + “And what have <i>you</i> learned?” she said. + </p> + <p> + The girl coughed importantly. “It is a poem of Goethe's,” she announced in + her high, satisfied voice. “<i>Kennst du das Land</i>” + </p> + <p> + “That will do,” said the German assistant. “I fear we shall not have time + for it to-day. The hour is up. You may go on with the translation for + to-morrow.” And as the class rose with a growing clamor she realized that + though she had been thinking steadily in German, she had been talking in + English. So that was why they had comprehended so well and answered so + readily! And yet she was too glad to be annoyed at the slip. There were + other things: her life was not a German class! + </p> + <p> + As the girls crowded out, one stopped by the desk. She laid her hand with + the pearl band on the third finger on the teacher's arm. “You look tired,” + she said. “I hope you're not ill?” + </p> + <p> + “Ill?” said the woman at the desk. “I never felt better. I've been + neglecting my classes, I fear, in the study of your green gown. It is so + very pretty.” + </p> + <p> + The girl smiled and colored a little. + </p> + <p> + “I'm glad you like it,” she said. “I like it, too.” Then, with a sudden + feeling of friendship, an odd sense of intimacy, a quick impulse of common + femininity, she added: + </p> + <p> + “I've had some good times in this dress. Wearing it up here makes me + remember them very strangely. It's queer, what a difference it makes—” + She stopped and looked questioningly at the older woman. + </p> + <p> + But the German assistant smiled at her. “Yes,” she said, “it is. And when + you have been teaching seven years the difference becomes very apparent.” + She gathered up her books, still smiling in a reminiscent way. And as she + went out of the door, she looked back at the glaring, sunny room as if + already it were far behind her, as if already she felt the house-mother's + kiss, and heard the 'cello, and saw Klara's tiny daughter standing by the + door, throwing kisses, calling, “<i>Da ist sie, ja!</i>” + </p> + <p> + Lost in the dream, her eyes fixed absently, she stumbled against her + fellow-assistant, who was making for the room she had just left. + </p> + <p> + “I beg your pardon—I wasn't looking. Oh, it's you!” she murmured + vaguely. Her fellow-assistant had a headache, and forty-five written + papers to correct. She had just heard, too, a cutting criticism of her + work made by the self-appointed faculty critic; the criticism was cleverly + worded, and had just enough truth to fly quickly and hurt her with the + head of her department. So she was not in the best of tempers. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, it's I,” she said crossly. “If you had knocked these papers an inch + farther, I should have invited you to correct them. If you go about in + that abstracted way much longer, my dear, Miss Selbourne will inform the + world (on the very best authority) that you're in love.” + </p> + <p> + “I? What nonsense!” + </p> + <p> + It was a ridiculous thing to say, and she flushed angrily at herself. It + was only a joke, of course. + </p> + <p> + The other woman laughed shortly. + </p> + <p> + “Dear me! I really believe you are!” she exclaimed. “The girls were saying + at breakfast that Professor Tredick was ruining himself in violets + yesterday—so it was for you!” and she went into the lecture-room. + </p> + <p> + A chattering crowd of girls closed in behind her. One voice rose above the + rest: + </p> + <p> + “Well, I don't know what you call it, then. He skated with her all the + winter, and at the Dickinson party they sat on one sofa for an hour and + talked steadily!” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, nonsense! She skates beautifully, that's all.” + </p> + <p> + “She sits on a sofa beautifully, too.” A burst of laughter, and the door + closed. + </p> + <p> + The German assistant smiled satirically. It was all of a piece. At least, + the younger women were perfectly frank about it: they did not feel + themselves forced to employ sarcasm in their references; it was not + necessary for them to appear to have definitely chosen this life in + preference to any other. Four years was little to lend to such an + experiment. But the older women, who sat on those prim little platforms + year after year—a sudden curiosity possessed her to know how many of + them were really satisfied. + </p> + <p> + Could it be that they had preferred—actually preferred—But she + had, herself, three years ago. She shook her head decidedly. “Not for nine + years, not for nine!” she murmured, as she caught through the heavy door a + familiar voice raised to emphasize some French phrase. + </p> + <p> + And yet, somebody must teach them. They could not be born with foreign + idioms and historical dates and mathematical formulae in their little + heads. She herself deplored the modern tendency that sent a changing drift + of young teachers through the colleges, to learn at the expense of the + students a soon relinquished profession. But how ridiculous the position + of the women who prided themselves on the steadiness and continuity of + their service! Surely they must find it an empty success at times. They + must regret. + </p> + <p> + She was passing through the chapel. Two scrubbing-women were straightening + the chairs, their backs turned to her. + </p> + <p> + “From all I hear,” said one, with a chuckle and a sly glance, “we'll be + afther gettin' our invitations soon.” + </p> + <p> + “An' to what?” demanded the other quickly. + </p> + <p> + “Sure, they say it's a weddin'.” + </p> + <p> + “Ah, now, hush yer noise, Mary Nolan; 'tis no such thing. I've had enough + o' husbands. I know when I'm doin' well, an' that's as I am!” + </p> + <p> + “'Tis strange that the men sh'd think different, now, but they do!” + </p> + <p> + They laughed heartily and long. The German assistant looked at the broad + backs meditatively. Just now they seemed to her more consistent than any + other women in the great building. + </p> + <p> + She walked quickly across the greening campus. The close-set brick + buildings seemed to press up against her; every window stood for some + crowded, narrow room, filled with books and tea-cups and clothes and + photographs—hundreds of them, and all alike. In her own room she + tried to reason herself out of this intolerable depression, to realize the + advantages of a quiet life in what was surely the same pleasant, cultured + atmosphere to which she had so eagerly looked forward three years ago. Her + room was large, well furnished, perfectly heated; and if the condition of + her closet would have appeared nothing short of appalling to a + householder, that condition was owing to the hopeless exigencies of the + occasion. With the exception of that whited sepulchre, all was neat, + artistic, eminently habitable. She surveyed it critically: the “Mona + Lisa,” the large “Melrose Abbey,” the Burne-Jones draperies, and the + “Blessed Damozel” that spread a placid if monotonous culture through the + rooms of educated single women. A proper appreciation of polished wood, + the sanitary and aesthetic values of the open fire, a certain scheme in + couch-pillows, all linked it to the dozen other rooms that occupied the + same relative ground-floor corners in a dozen other houses. Some of them + had more books, some ran to handsome photographs, some afforded fads in + old furniture; but it was only a question of more or less. It looked + utterly impersonal to-day; its very atmosphere was artificial, typical, a + pretended self-sufficiency. + </p> + <p> + How many years more should she live in it—three, nine, thirteen? The + tide of girls would ebb and flow with every June and September; eighteen + to twenty-two would ring their changes through the terms, and she could + take her choice of the two methods of regarding them: she could insist on + a perennial interest in the separate personalities, and endure weariness + for the sake of an uncertain influence; or she could mass them frankly as + the student body, and confine the connection to marking their class-room + efforts and serving their meat in the dining-room. The latter was at once + more honest and more easy; all but the most ambitious or the most + conscientious came ta it sooner or later. + </p> + <p> + The youngest among the assistants, themselves fresh from college, mingled + naturally enough with the students; they danced and skated and enjoyed + their girlish authority. The older women, seasoned to the life, settled + there indefinitely, identified themselves more or less with the town, + amused themselves with their little aristocracy of precedence, and wove + and interwove the complicated, slender strands of college gossip. But a + woman of barely thirty, too old for friendships with young girls, too + young to find her placid recreation in the stereotyped round of social + functions, that seemed so perfectly imitative of the normal and yet so + curiously unsuccessful at bottom—what was there for her? + </p> + <p> + Her eyes were fixed on the hill-slope view that made her room so + desirable. It occurred to her that its changelessness was not necessarily + so attractive a characteristic as the local poets practised themselves in + assuring her. + </p> + <p> + A light knock at the door recalled to her the utter lack of privacy that + put her at the mercy of laundress, sophomore, and expressman. She + regretted that she had not put up the little sign whose “<i>Please do not + disturb</i>” was her only means of defence. + </p> + <p> + “Come!” she called shortly, and the tall girl in the green dress stood in + the open door. A strange sense of long acquaintance, a vague feeling of + familiarity, surprised the older woman. Her expression changed. + </p> + <p> + “Come in,” she said cordially. + </p> + <p> + “I—am I disturbing you?” asked the girl doubtfully. She had a pile + of books on her arm; her trim jacket and hat, and something in the way she + held her armful, seemed curiously at variance with her tam-o'-shantered, + golf-caped friends. + </p> + <p> + “I couldn't find out whether you had an office hour, and I didn't know + whether I ought to have sent in my name—it seemed so formal, when it + is only a moment I need to see you—” + </p> + <p> + “Sit down,” said the German assistant pleasantly. “What can I do for you?” + </p> + <p> + “I have been talking with Fräulein Müller about my German, and she says if + you are willing to give me an outline for advanced work and an examination + later on, I can go into a higher division in a little while. Languages are + always easy for me, and I could go on much quicker.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, certainly. I have thought more than once that you were wasting your + time. The class is too large and too slow. I will make you out an outline + and give it to you after class to-morrow,” said the German assistant + promptly. “Meanwhile, won't you stay and make me a little call? I will + light the fire and make some tea, if that is an inducement.” + </p> + <p> + “The invitation is inducement enough, I assure you,” smiled the girl, “but + I must not stay to-day, I think. If you will let me come again, when I + have no work to bother you with, I should love to.” + </p> + <p> + There was something easily decisive in her manner, something very + different from the other students, who refused such invitations awkwardly, + eager to be pressed, and when finally assured of a sincere welcome, + prolonged their calls and talked about themselves into the uncounted + hours. Evidently she would not stay this time; evidently she would like to + come again. + </p> + <p> + As the door closed behind her the German assistant dropped her cordial + smile, and sank back listlessly in her chair. + </p> + <p> + “After all, she's only a girl!” she murmured. For almost an hour she sat + looking fixedly at the unlit logs, hardly conscious of the wasted time. + Much might have gone into that hour. There was tea for her at one of the + college houses—the hostess had a “day,” and went so far as to aspire + to the exclusive serving of a certain kind of tinned fancy biscuit every + Friday—if she wanted to drop in. This hostess invited favored + students to meet the faculty and townspeople on these occasions, and the + two latter classes were expected to effect a social fusion with the former—which + linked it, to some minds, a little too obviously with professional duties. + </p> + <p> + She might call on the head of her department, who was suffering from some + slight indisposition, and receive minute advice as to the conduct of her + classes, mingled with general criticism of various colleagues and their + methods. She might make a number of calls; but if there is one situation + in which the futility of these social mockeries becomes most thoroughly + obvious, it is the situation presented by an attempt to imitate the + conventional society life in a woman's college. And yet—she had gone + over the whole question so often—what a desert of awkwardness and + learned provincialism such a college would be without the attempt! How + often she had cordially agreed to the statement that it was precisely + because of its insistence upon this connection with the forms and + relations of normal life that her college was so successfully free from + the tomboyishness or the priggishness or the gaucherie of some of the + others! And yet its very success came from begging the question, after + all. + </p> + <p> + She shook her head impatiently. A strong odor of boiling chocolate crept + through the transom. Somebody began to practise a monotonous accompaniment + on the guitar. Over her head a series of startling bumps and jarring falls + suggested a troupe of baby elephants practising for their first appearance + in public. The German assistant set her teeth. + </p> + <p> + “Before I die,” she announced to her image in the glass, “I propose to + inquire flatly of Miss Burgess if she <i>does</i> pile her furniture in a + heap and slide down it on her toboggan! There is no other logical + explanation of that horrible disturbance.” + </p> + <p> + The face in the glass caught her attention. It looked sallow, with lines + under the eyes. The hair rolled back a little too severely for the + prevailing mode, and she recalled her late visitor's effectively adjusted + side-combs, her soft, dark waves. + </p> + <p> + “They have time for it, evidently,” she mused, “and after all it is + certainly more important than modal auxiliaries!” + </p> + <p> + And for half an hour she twisted and looped and coiled, between the + chiffonnier and a hand-glass, fairly flushing with pleasure at the result. + </p> + <p> + “Now,” she said, looking cheerfully at a pile of written papers, “I'll + take a walk, I think—a real walk.” And till dinner-time she tramped + some of the old roads of her college days—more girlish than those + days had found her, lighter-footed, she thought, than before. + </p> + <p> + The flush was still in her cheeks as she served her hungry tableful, and + she could not fail to catch the meaning of their frank stares. Pausing in + the parlor door to answer a question, she overheard a bit of conversation: + </p> + <p> + “Doesn't she look well with her hair low? Quite stunning, I think.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, indeed. If only she wouldn't dress so old! It makes her look older + than she is. That red waist she wears in the evening is awfully becoming.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, I hate her in dark things.” + </p> + <p> + The regret that she had not found time to put on the red waist was so + instant and keen that she laughed at herself when alone in her room. She + moved vaguely about, aimlessly changing the position of the furniture. How + absurd! To do one's hair differently, and take a long walk, and feel as if + an old life were somehow far behind one! + </p> + <p> + Later she found herself before her desk, hunting for her foreign + letter-paper, and once started, her pen flew. There were long meditative + lapses, 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 fat + brown-stamped envelope. The night-watchman chuckled as he watched the head + shrouded in the golf-cape hood bend a moment over the little white square. + </p> + <p> + “Maybe it's one o' the maids, maybe it's one o' the teachers, maybe it's + one o' the girls,” he confided to his lantern; “they're all alike, come to + that! An' a good thing, too!” + </p> + <p> + In the morning the German assistant dismissed her last class early and + took train for Springfield. On the way to the station a deferential clerk + from the bookshop waylaid her. + </p> + <p> + “One moment, please. Those books you spoke of. Mr. Hartwell's library is + up at auction and we're sending a man to buy to-day. If you could get the + whole set for twenty-five dollars—” + </p> + <p> + She smiled and shook her head. “I've changed my mind, thank you—I + can't afford it. Yes, I suppose it is a bargain, but books are such a + trouble to carry about, you know. No, I don't think of anything else.” + </p> + <p> + What freedom, what a strange baseless exhilaration! Suppose—suppose + it was all a mistake, and she should wake back to the old stubborn, + perfunctory reality! Perhaps it was better, saner—that quiet + taken-for-granted existence. Perhaps she regretted—but even with the + half-fear at her heart she laughed at that. If wake she must, she loved + the dream. How she trusted that man! “Always I will wait”—and he + would. But seven years! She threw the thought behind her. + </p> + <p> + The next days passed in a swift, confused flight. She knew they were all + discussing her, wondering at her changed face, her fresh, becoming + clothes; they decided that she had had money left her. + </p> + <p> + “Some of my girls saw you shopping in Springfield last Saturday—they + say 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, you + look so well in it. Did you know Professor Riggs spoke of your hat with + wild enthusiasm to Mrs. Austin Sunday? He said it was wonderful what a + difference a stylish hat made. Not that he meant, of course—Well, + it's lovely to be able to get what you want. Goodness knows, I wish I + could.” + </p> + <p> + The other laughed. “Oh, it's perfectly easy if you really want to,” she + said, “it all depends on what you want, you know.” + </p> + <p> + For the first week she moved in a kind of exaltation. It was partly that + her glass showed her a different woman: soft-eyed, with cheeks tinted from + the long, restless walks through the spring that was coming on with every + warm, greening day. The excitement of the letter hung over her. She + pictured her announcement, Fräulein Müller's amazed questions. + </p> + <p> + “'But—but I do not understand! You are not well?' + </p> + <p> + “'Perfectly, thank you.' + </p> + <p> + “'But I am perfectly satisfied: I do not wish to change. You are not sick, + then?' + </p> + <p> + “'Only of teaching, Fräulein.' + </p> + <p> + “'But the instructorship—I was going to recommend—do not be + alarmed; you shall have it surely!' + </p> + <p> + “'You are very kind, but I have taught long enough.' + </p> + <p> + “'Then you do not find another position? Are you to be—'” + </p> + <p> + 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 not + decent. She grew satiric. How embarrassing for him to read such a letter + in the bosom of an affectionate, flaxen-haired family! At least, she would + never know how he really felt, thank Heaven. And what was left for her + then? To her own mind she had burned her bridges already. She was as far + from this place in fancy as if the miles stretched veritably between them. + And yet she knew no other life. She knew no other men. He was the only + one. In a flash of shame it came over her that a woman with more + experience would never have written such a letter. Everybody knew that men + forget, change, easily replace first loves. Nobody but such a cloistered, + academic spinster as she would have trusted a seven years' promise. This + was another result of such lives as they led—such helpless, + provincial women. Her resentment grew against the place. It had made her a + fool. + </p> + <p> + 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 accusing shame, + her cheeks flaming under her wide, dark hat, her quick step more sweeping + than she knew, her eyes on the ground, she just escaped collision with a + suddenly looming masculine figure. A hasty apology, a startled glance of + appeal, a quick breath that parted her lips, and she was past the + stranger. But not before she had caught in his eyes a look that quickened + her heart, that soothed her angry humility. The sudden sincere admiration, + the involuntary tribute to her charm, was new to her, but the instinct of + countless generations made it as plain and as much her prerogative as if + she had been the most successful débutante. She was not, then, an object + of pity, to be treasured for the sake of the old days; other men, too—the + impulse outstripped thought, but she caught up with it. + </p> + <p> + “How dreadful!” she murmured, with a consciousness of undreamed depths in + herself. “Of course he is the only one—the only one!” and across the + water she begged his forgiveness. + </p> + <p> + But through all her agony of doubt in the days that followed, one shame + was miraculously removed, one hope sang faintly beneath: she, too, had her + power! A glance in the street had called her from one army of her sisters + to the other, and the difference was inestimable. + </p> + <p> + Her classes stared at her with naïve admiration. The girls in the house + begged for her as a chaperon to Amherst entertainments, and sulked when a + report that the young hosts found her too attractive to enable strangers + to distinguish readily between her and her charges rendered another + selection advisable. The fact that her interest in them was fitful, + sometimes making her merry and intimate, sometimes relegating them to a + connection purely professional, only left her more interesting to them; + and boxes of flowers, respectful solicitations to spreads, and tempting + invitations to long drives through the lengthening afternoons began to + elect her to an obvious popularity. Once it would have meant much to her; + she marvelled now at the little shade of jealousy with which her + colleagues assured her of it. How long must she wait? When would life be + real again? + </p> + <p> + She seemed to herself to move in a dream that heightened and strained + quicker as it neared an inevitable shock of waking—to what? Even at + the best, to what? Even supposing that—she put it boldly, as if it + had been another woman—she should marry the man who had asked her + seven years ago, what was there in the very obvious future thus assured + her that could match the hopes her heart held out? How could it be at once + the golden harbor, the peaceful end of hurried, empty years, and the + delicious, 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! + </p> + <p> + But every day, as she moved with tightened lips to the table where the + mail lay spread, coloring at a foreign stamp, paling with the + disappointment, her hope grew fainter. He dared not write and tell her. It + was over. Violet shadows darkened her eyes; a feverish flush made her, as + it grew and faded at the slightest warning, more girlish than ever. + </p> + <p> + But the young life about her seemed only to mock her own late weakened + impulse. It was not the same. She was playing heavy stakes: they hardly + realized the game. All but one, they irritated her. This one, since her + first short call, had come and come again. No explanations, no + confidences, had passed between them; their sympathy, deep-rooted, + expressed itself perfectly in the ordinary conventional tone of two + reserved if congenial natures. The girl did not discuss herself, the woman + dared not. They talked of books, music, travel; never, as if by tacit + agreement, of any of the countless possible personalities in a place so + given to personal discussion. + </p> + <p> + She could not have told how she knew that the girl had come to college to + please a mother whose great regret was to have missed such training, nor + did she remember when her incurious friend had learned her tense + determination of flight; she could have sworn that she had never spoken of + it. Sometimes, so perfectly did they appear to understand each other + beneath an indifferent conversation, it seemed to her that the words must + be the merest symbols, and that the girl who always caught her lightest + shade of meaning knew to exactness her alternate hope and fear, the + rudderless tossing toward and from her taunting harbor-light. + </p> + <p> + They sat by an open window, breathing in the moist air from the fresh, + upturned earth. The gardeners were working over the sprouting beds; the + sun came in warm and sweet. + </p> + <p> + “Three weeks ago it was almost cold at this time,” said the girl. “In the + springtime I give up going home, and love the place. But two years more—two + years!” + </p> + <p> + “Do you really mind it so much?” + </p> + <p> + “I think what I mind the most is that I don't like it more,” said the girl + slowly. “Mamma wanted it so. She really loved study. I don't, but if I did—I + should love it more than this. This would seem so childish. And if I just + wanted a good time, why, then this would seem such a lot of trouble. All + the good things here seem—seem remedies!” + </p> + <p> + The older woman laughed nervously. Three weeks—three weeks and no + word! + </p> + <p> + “You will be making epigrams, my dear, if you don't take care,” she said + lightly. “But you're going to finish just the same? The girls like you, + your work is good; you ought to stay.” + </p> + <p> + The girl flashed a look of surprise at her. It was her only hint of + sympathy. + </p> + <p> + “You advise me to?” she asked quietly. + </p> + <p> + “I think it would be a pity to disappoint your mother,” with a light hand + on her shoulder. “You are so young—four years is very, little. Of + course you could do the work in half the time, but you admit that you are + not an ardent student. If nobody came here but the girls that really + needed to, we shouldn't have the reputation that we have. The girls to + whom this place means the last word in learning and the last grace of + social life are estimable young women, but not so pleasant to meet as + you.” + </p> + <p> + Three weeks—but he had waited seven years! + </p> + <p> + “I am very childish,” said the girl. “Of course I will stay. And some of + it I like very much. It's only that mamma doesn't understand. She + overestimates it so. Somehow, the more complete it is, the more like + everything else, the more you have to find fault with on all sides. I'd + rather have come when mamma was a girl.” + </p> + <p> + “I see. I have thought that, too.” + </p> + <p> + Ah, fool, give up your senseless hope! You had your chance—you lost + it. Fate cannot stop and wait while you grow wise. + </p> + <p> + “When that shadow covers the hill, I will give it up forever. Then I will + write to Henry's wife and ask her to let me come and help take care of the + children. She will like it, and I can get tutoring if I want it. I will + make the children love me, and there will be a place where I shall be + wanted and can help,” she thought. + </p> + <p> + The shadow slipped lower. The fresh turf steeped in the last rays, the + birds sang, the warming earth seemed to have touched the very core of + spring. Her hopes had answered the eager years, but her miracle was too + wonderful to be. + </p> + <p> + A light knock at the door, and a maid came toward her, tray in hand. She + lifted the card carelessly—her heart dropped a moment and beat in + hard, slow throbs. Her eyes filled with tears; her cheeks were hot and + brilliant. + </p> + <p> + “I will be there in a moment.” How deep her voice sounded! + </p> + <p> + The girl slipped by her. + </p> + <p> + “I was going anyway,” she said softly. “Good-by! Don't touch your hair—it's + just right.” + </p> + <p> + She did not wait for an answer, but went out. As she passed by the little + reception-room a tall, eager man made toward her with outstretched hands. + Her voice trembled as she laughed. + </p> + <p> + “No, no—I'm not the one,” she murmured, “but she—she's + coming!” + </p> + <div style="height: 6em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Reversion To Type, by Josephine Daskam + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A REVERSION TO TYPE *** + +***** This file should be named 23364-h.htm or 23364-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/3/3/6/23364/ + +Produced by David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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