MATCHED PEARLS (7 page)

An instant later she dashed the tears angrily from her face, and going to the open window she threw the flowers out and down behind the shrubs that grew around the dormitory. A great panic came over her lest Doris should come and find her weeping over dead flowers. Doris could make a lot out of a thing like that.

She hurried to splash water on her face, dab it expertly with a soft towel, and then apply powder deftly till all traces of her recent emotion were obliterated.

As she turned away from the mirror, she experienced a wild wish that she could as easily erase the memory of those flowers from her heart.

But she went over to her desk with a firm resolve to get to work and drive this nonsense out of her mind. When Doris came in a few minutes later with her hands full of letters, she was working away at her thesis.

“Listen, Connie,” cried Doris, sitting down beside the desk, “pay attention! I’ve got a letter!”

“A letter?” said Constance, looking up coolly. “Is that unusual? You seem to have many letters. And really I’m awfully busy, Dorrie!”

“But this is a special letter!” said Doris, sparkling. “It’s from Casper Coulter!”

“Again?” said Constance coldly with disapproval in her voice. “I thought you said you were done with him.”

“Oh, I am as far as that goes,” laughed Doris. “I gave him back his pin before Easter, but it doesn’t seem to faze him in the least. After all, why shouldn’t I have a good time with him? He understands that I’m not committed to him. Besides, Connie, he certainly shows a girl a good time. But anyhow that’s not the point. He’s coming down for the dance on the weekend. He just pestered the life out of me. Besides, he has a new car that is simply sublime. I couldn’t resist.”

“He’ll get drunk!” said Constance with a lifting of her chin and a slight curl of her lip.

“No, he won’t!” said Doris. “He promised me! He hasn’t been drinking at all since Easter!”

“He says so, I suppose,” commented Constance loftily.

“Yes, he says so, but Sam Warner says so, too. And anyhow, that’s not the point. He’s bringing a perfectly stunning man down with him, and he wants to know if you’ll let him take you to the dance. Now, Connie, don’t begin that I-am-better-than-thou frown! Wait till you hear. He’s not Casper’s chum. He’s ages older than Casp. He graduated four years ago. He’s a perfectly stunning man! A real thrill! He’s dark and interesting and tall. I saw him once while I was in New York last week, and Casper pointed him out to me. He’s written a couple of successful plays, and he’s all kinds of clever, musical and artistic, and awfully popular. Casper is just crazy about him. He’s your line, clever and intellectual and all that.”

“I’m sure I ought to be greatly honored that Casper Coulter considers me clever and intellectual,” said Constance haughtily, “but really, I must decline to entertain his friends. I just can’t stand Casper’s kind of men.”

“Now, Connie, don’t be horrid. Just because you’ve joined church don’t go and get disagreeable. You’ve practically got to do this for me, because, you see, I told Casper it would be all right and for him to bring him if he could. And you won’t go back on me now after I’ve given my word, and he’s already been asked.”

Constance flashed a look of annoyance at her roommate.

“You had no right in the world to do that, Doris. You know Casper Coulter is not my kind, and I don’t want to have anything to do with him or his friends. I don’t like to go with strangers either. I hate this way of forcing a man to go with a girl he hasn’t even met. I’ve always made it a rule to go only when the man himself asks me. I don’t approve of somebody else picking out partners. And you needn’t give that nasty fling about joining the church. You know it has nothing to do with that. I just don’t like Casper’s crowd or his way of doing things.”

“Now listen, Connie,” said Doris, settling down earnestly to plead her cause. “You’re all mistaken about this man. Casper has been telling him a lot about you, how beautiful and clever you are, and he’s wild to meet you. It seems he saw you last year in the distance and has been asking Casper to bring him down ever since. He calls you the girl with the gorgeous gold hair. And Connie, you needn’t go again if you don’t like him, but you won’t let me down this time, will you? I’ve told the girls he’s coming down to take you, and they’re all crazy to meet him. Rose Mellen went to the opening night of his first play and she says it was a wonder, just full of thrills and pathos. And you know, Connie, if you turn him down flat that way, the girls will all say it’s because you’ve got religious.”

“I don’t know why it should matter to me what the girls think,” said Constance coldly, though she knew in her heart that it did. “If Rose Mellen is so crazy about him, why don’t you let him take Rose? Her hair is a much brighter gold than mine.”

“Because Rose Mellen is going with Pat Fraley, of course. And anyway it’s you the man wants to meet, not Rose. She’s not his type at all. You don’t know how interesting he is, Connie. It’s not every day a girl can meet a man who is crazy about her before he even knows her.”

In the end Constance gave in and promised, as Doris had been confident she would. But Doris would have been amazed if she had known what made her do it. Just the sudden sight of a little, withered blue flower lying on the rug at her foot, a little faded flower that had slipped away from the rest and remained behind to linger with a memory of a windswept hillside and the dawn of a dewy sunlit morning.

Constance saw it with a dart of remembrance, put out her foot quickly, casually, and covered the little crumbling flower, grinding it into the rug. But the vision of the tall stranger with the light of the morning in his eyes and the blue flowers in his hand had done its work. All her worries of the night before seemed suddenly to rush back upon her. Well, why not one stranger as well as another? And perhaps this new one would be able to drive out the vision of the other and bring peace back to her soul again.

So, reluctantly, she consented, telling Doris firmly that she would do it this one time, but that she must never again make any promises for her.

Doris hugged her ecstatically and went joyously on her way to her next class. Constance tried to bring her mind back to her thesis, but it would whirl on in circles until she got up in despair and carefully brushed every vestige of the little dead flower from the rug. Then she sat down and went vigorously to work at her thesis once more, telling herself that she would simply refuse to think at all of that incident of Easter. She would plunge into work and play—any play that offered itself during the few weeks that remained—and get rid of this ridiculous obsession.

So with the lingo of the classroom and the patter of the campus, Constance lashed her startled conscience into quiescence once more and went forth into each day welcoming any diversion whether of work or play that would make her forget utterly her doldrums, as she called them.

But college life began to sweep in a strong tide and left no room for repining. There was much to be done in the next few weeks, for commencement was almost upon them. There were rehearsals and speeches and invitations and clothes to discuss and plan. Each day was more than full. Shoes and gloves, white dresses and rainbow-colored dresses, caps and gowns, and all the other paraphernalia of commencement. There were class meetings galore, presents for teachers and graduating classmates, fraternity meetings and business, much discussion about pledging new members. It was all most absorbing and fascinating.

Constance was swept along with the rest with little time for dreaming or harking back to Seagrave and what had happened at Easter.

One day she asked Doris: “Well, how about this thriller that I’m to take to the dance Saturday night? You’ve raved a lot about him, but you haven’t even told me his name.”

“Oh, surely I have!” said Doris, laughing. “It’s Thurlow Phelps Wayne.” Doris pronounced the syllables impressively.

“Why the Phelps?” asked Constance dryly. “Wasn’t Thurlow enough to uphold the Wayne prestige?”

“Oh, you, you make me tired!” said Doris in a vexed tone. “Here I’ve gone and got you a man with a real background and you make fun of him before you’ve even seen him.”

“Well, isn’t that better than doing it after I’ve seen him?” mocked Constance. It still went against the grain to take up with any of Casper Coulter’s friends. She felt that Casper Coulter was a bad influence in Doris’s life and she could see that more and more. Doris was becoming deeply interested in him.

“Well, just wait until you see him, that’s all!” said Doris petulantly. “And you may as well know that the Phelps is distinguished. He belongs to the old Phelps family of New England, an old,
old
family and quite notable. I believe they were all literary, and the Thurlows were distinguished, too. I forget for what. But they are awfully smart and quite popular.”

So for the next two days Doris began giving anecdotes and incidents concerning the Thurlows, the Phelpses, and the Waynes whenever Constance was in the room.

“What’s the idea?” asked Constance at last. “Are you afraid I’m going to back out, or are you aiming to make a permanent connection, a sort of quartet to bring about some of your own dates? Because I warn you that however nice this Thurlow person proves to be, I’m done when this dance is over. He may be an angel in disguise, but anybody who makes it easy for you and that Coulter boy to get together again would be my enemy. Because truly, Doris, Casper Coulter isn’t good enough for you, and that’s the truth. I do hate to see you running around with him, and I’d take twice as much interest in this dance and this unknown knight you’re bringing on for me if you’d just promise me that after Saturday night you’re done with Casper.”

“For heaven’s sake, Con, what’s gotten into you? I do believe there must be more in that church gesture of yours than you’re willing to own. I never saw you so particular before. What’s the matter with Casper? Just because he took a little too much liquor once and went with a girl you didn’t like. All men do things they grow out of. Besides, when a young man gets married he generally settles down. If he doesn’t, one can always get a divorce nowadays.”

“Doris!”
Constance swung around toward her. “You’re not going to marry him, are you? And to marry anyone that way, talking about getting a divorce! You’ve never talked that way before! I’m sure your people are not that kind of people!”

“Oh, you and your kinds of people! What’s wrong with divorce, I’d like to know? Everybody’s doing it nowadays,” said Doris angrily. “But I didn’t say I was going to marry him, did I? But all the same you’re changed. I don’t know what it is, but you’re twice as finicky as you were before you went home this last time. If it’s religion I hope I don’t catch it. For goodness’ sake cut it out! After Saturday night you’ll understand that I’m really doing you a favor introducing you to such a talented man as Thurlow Wayne.”

“Thurlow Phelps Wayne, dearie. Don’t forget the Phelps. Is it hyphenated? Shall I have to call him Mr. Phelps-Wayne?” Constance’s tone was amused but there was a note of anxiety behind it. She really was worried about Doris, for she was becoming more and more absorbed in the young man whom Constance felt was utterly unworthy of her. She was still more worried when for answer Doris slammed out of the room angrily. It was not like Doris to lose her temper.

Nevertheless as they day of the dance approached, Constance’s mind turned toward the stranger with more than her usual distaste toward meeting someone against whom she was already prejudiced. What would he be like? How would he look? Was it conceivable that she could possibly enjoy the society of a man who was a friend of Casper Coulter?

Constance had by this time pretty well exorcised the memory of Seagrave, his blue flowers and strange conversation. She only thought of them occasionally, as one looks back to a book read or a picture seen which left a strong impression. Only, now and then, when she leaned forward to look out of her window and glanced down at the shrubs growing luxuriantly there, she had quick consciousness of the little dead flowers she had thrown there, as if it were a grave below her, hiding something that had once been dear.

But Friday night she had a sharp, vivid dream of Seagrave—dreamed she was telling him about the pearls, dreamed that his look had been even graver, sadder than she had feared, dreamed that her burden was even heavier than before—and woke up with a sharp memory of the sorrow in his face.

His look lingered with her through the day, though outwardly she was for the most part her cheerful, crisp self, utterly sure of her own position in life, utterly strong and breezy and hard and bright. But in her heart a war was being waged.

Somehow the renewed picture of Seagrave had strengthened her dislike toward meeting Thurlow Wayne and going to that dance with him. The dance itself meant nothing to her. She had danced all her life. She was not especially interested in going, even without him, but as the day waned and the time for meeting her escort arrived, she developed such a strong dislike toward going that she half contemplated going to bed and pretending to be sick. Only somehow she could not quite bring herself to play such a trick on Doris of whom she was really very fond, and who was obviously so full of delightful anticipation that she could hardly contain herself.

So Constance arrayed herself in garments calculated to be the most impressive. Severe black satin and her string of pearls. She hesitated a long time about the pearls. Somehow she shrank from the pearls because of the memories they brought up, which still were accompanied by a keen feeling of humiliation. Then suddenly she realized that if she were ever to get over that nonsense, now was the time to do it, so she quickly clasped them around her neck and turned away from the mirror. She had not worn them since Easter Day, and somehow she did not want to remember that now. This kind of thing, this dance, was what she had wanted the pearls for in the first place. Of course she would wear them. They would help her to be impressive. And it just might happen that Doris would need something impressive to keep her from doing something foolish.