The Plastic Age Part 29

The pistol cracked. The start was perfect; the five men leaped forward almost exactly together. For once Calvert had not beaten the others off the mark, but he immediately drew ahead. He was running powerfully, his legs rising and falling in exact rhythm, his spikes tearing into the cinder path. But Hugh and Murphy were pressing him close. At the end of the first hundred Calvert led by a yard. Hugh pounded on, Murphy falling behind him. The others were hopelessly outcla.s.sed. Hugh did not think; he did not hear a thousand men shouting hysterically, "Carver! Carver!"

He saw nothing but Calvert a yard ahead of him. He knew nothing but that he had to make up that yard. Down the track they sped, their breath bursting from them, their hands clenched, their faces grotesquely distorted, their legs driving them splendidly on.

Hugh was gaining; that yard was closing. He sensed it rather than saw it. He saw nothing now, not even Calvert. Blinded with effort, his lungs aching, his heart pounding terribly, he fought on, mechanically keeping between the two white lines. Ten yards from the tape he was almost abreast of Calvert. He saw the tape through a red haze; he made a final valiant leap for it--but he never touched it: Calvert's chest had broken it a tiny fraction of a second before.

Hugh almost collapsed after the race. Two men caught him and carried him, despite his protests, to the dressing-room. At first he was aware only of his overwhelming weariness. Something very important had happened. It was over, and he was tired, infinitely tired. A rub-down refreshed his muscles, but his spirit remained weary. For a month he had thought of nothing but that race--even Cynthia had become strangely insignificant in comparison with it--and now that the race had been run and lost, his whole spirit sagged and drooped.

He was pounded on the back; his hand was grasped and shaken until it ached; he was cheered to an echo by the thrilled Sanford men; but still his depression remained. He had won his letter, he had run a magnificent race, all Sanford sang his praise--Norry Parker had actually cried with excitement and delight--but he felt that he had failed; he had not justified himself.

A few days later he entered Henley's office, intending to make only a brief visit. Henley congratulated him. "You were wonderful, Hugh," he said enthusiastically. "The way that you crawled up on him the last hundred yards was thrilling. I shouted until I was hoa.r.s.e. I never saw any one fight more gamely. He's a faster man than you are, but you almost beat him. I congratulate you--excuse the word, please--on your guts."

Somehow Hugh couldn't stand Henley's enthusiasm. Suddenly he blurted out the whole story, his drunkenness at the Prom, his split with Cynthia--he did not mention the visit to Norry's room--his determination to redeem himself, his feeling that if he had won that race he would at least have justified his existence at the college, and, finally, his sense of failure.

Henley listened sympathetically, amused and touched by the boy's naive philosophy. He did not tell him that the race was relatively unimportant--he was sure that Hugh would find that out for himself--but he did bring him comfort.

"You did not fail, Hugh," he said gently; "you succeeded magnificently.

As for serving your college, you can always serve it best by being yourself, being true to yourself, I mean, and that means being the very fine gentleman that you are." He paused a minute, aware that he must be less personal; Hugh was red to the hair and gazing unhappily at the floor.

"You must read Browning," he went on, "and learn about his success-in-failure philosophy. He maintains that it is better to strive for a million and miss it than to strive for a hundred and get it. 'A man's reach should exceed his grasp or what's a heaven for?' He says it in a dozen different ways. It's the man who tries bravely for something beyond his power that gets somewhere, the man who really succeeds. Well, you tried for something beyond your power--to beat Calvert, a really great runner. You tried to your utmost; therefore, you succeeded. I admire your sense of failure; it means that you recognize an ideal. But I think that you succeeded. You may not have quite justified yourself to yourself, but you have proved capable of enduring a hard test bravely.

You have no reason to be depressed, no reason to be ashamed."

They talked for a long time, and finally Henley confessed that he thought Cynthia had been wise in taking herself out of Hugh's life.

"I can see," he said, "that you aren't telling me quite all the story. I don't want you to, either. I judge, however, from what you have said that you went somewhere with her and that only complete drunkenness saved you from disgracing both yourself and her. You need no lecture, I am sure; you are sufficiently contrite. I have a feeling that she was right about s.e.xual attraction being paramount; and I think that she is a very brave girl. I like the way she went home, and I like the way she has kept silent. Not many girls could or would do that. It takes courage. From what you have said, however, I imagine that she is not your kind; at least, that she isn't the kind that is good for you. You have suffered and are suffering, I know, but I am sure that some day you are going to be very grateful to that girl--for a good many reasons."

Hugh felt better after that talk, and the end of the term brought him a surprise that wiped out his depression and his sense of failure. He found, too, that his pain was growing less; the wound was healing.

Perversely, he hated it for healing, and he poked it viciously to feel it throb. Agony had become sweet. It made life more intense, less beautiful, perhaps, but more wonderful, more real. Romantically, too, he felt that he must be true both to his love and to his sorrow, and his love was fading into a memory that was plaintively gray but shot with scarlet thrills--and his sorrow was bowing before the relentless excitement of his daily life.

The surprise that rehabilitated him in his own respect was his election to the Boule, the senior council and governing board of the student body. It was the greatest honor that an undergraduate could receive, and Hugh had in no way expected it. When Nu Delta had first suggested to him that he be a candidate, he had demurred, saying that there were other men in his delegation better fitted to serve and with better chances of election. Leonard Gates, however, felt otherwise; and before Hugh knew what had happened he was a candidate along with thirty other juniors, only twelve of whom could be elected.

He took no part in the campaigning, attended none of the caucuses, was hardly interested in the fraternity "combine" that promised to elect him. He did not believe that he could be elected; he saw no reason why he should be. As a matter of fact, as Gates and others well knew, his chances were more than good. Hugh was popular in his own right, and his great race in the Sanford-Raleigh meet had made him something of a hero for the time being. Furthermore, he was a member of both the Glee and Banjo Clubs, he had led his cla.s.s in the spring sings for three years, and he had a respectable record in his studies.

The tapping took place in chapel the last week of cla.s.ses. After the first hymn, the retiring members of the Boule rose and marched down the aisle to where the juniors were sitting. The new members were tapped in the order of the number of votes that they had received, and the first man tapped, having received the largest number of votes, automatically became president of the Boule for the coming year.

Hugh's interest naturally picked up the day of the election, and he began to have faint hopes that he would be the tenth or eleventh man. To his enormous surprise he was tapped third, and he marched down the aisle to the front seat reserved for the new members with the applause of his fellows sweet in his ears. It didn't seem possible; he was one of the most popular and most respected men in his cla.s.s. He could not understand it, but he didn't particularly care to understand it; the honor was enough.

Nu Delta tried to heap further honors on him, but he declined them. As a member of Boule he was naturally nominated for the presidency of the chapter. Quite properly, he felt that he was not fitted for such a position; and he retired in favor of John Lawrence, the only man in his delegation really capable of controlling the brothers. Lawrence was a man like Gates. He would, Hugh knew, carry on the constructive work that Gates had so splendidly started. Nu Delta was in the throes of one of those changes so characteristic of fraternities.

CHAPTER XXIV

Hugh spent his last college vacation at home, working on the farm, reading, occasionally dancing at Corley Lake, and thinking a great deal.

He saw Janet Harton, now Janet Moffitt, several times at the lake and wondered how he could ever have adored her. She was still childlike, still dainty and pretty, but to Hugh she was merely a talking doll, and he felt a little sorry for her burly, rather stupid husband who lumbered about after her like a protecting watch-dog.

He met plenty of pretty girls at the lake, but, as he said, he was "off women for good." He was afraid of them; he had been severely burnt, and while the fire still fascinated him, it frightened him, too. Women, he was sure, were shallow creatures, dangerous to a man's peace of mind and self-respect. They were all right to dance with and pet a bit; but that was all, absolutely all.

He thought a lot about girls that summer and even more about his life after graduation from college. What was he going to do? Life stretched ahead of him for one year like a smooth, flowered plain--and then the abyss. He felt prepared to do nothing at all, and he was not swept by an overpowering desire to do anything in particular. Writing had the greatest appeal for him, but he doubted his ability. Teach? Perhaps. But teaching meant graduate work. Well, he would see what the next year at college would show. He was going to take a course in composition with Professor Henley, and if Henley thought his gifts warranted it, he would ask his father for a year or two of graduate work at Harvard.

College was pleasant that last year. It was pleasant to wear a blue sweater with an orange S on it; it was pleasant, too, to wear a small white hat that had a blue B on the crown, the insignia of the Boule and a sign that he was a person to be respected and obeyed; it was pleasant to be spoken to by the professors as one who had reached something approaching manhood; life generally was pleasant, not so exciting as the three preceding years but fuller and richer. Early in the first term he was elected to Helmer, an honor society that possessed a granite "tomb,"

a small windowless building in which the members were supposed to discuss questions of great importance and practice secret rites of awe-inspiring wonder. As a matter of fact, the monthly meetings were nothing but "bull fests," or as one cynical member put it, "We wear a gold helmet on our sweaters and chew the fat once a month." True enough, but that gold helmet glittered enticingly in the eyes of every student who did not possess one.

For the first time Hugh's studies meant more to him than the undergraduate life. He had chosen his instructors carefully, having learned from three years of experience that the instructor was far more important than the t.i.tle of the course. He had three cla.s.ses in literature, one in music--partly because it was a "snap" and partly because he really wanted to know more about music--and his composition course with Henley, to him the most important of the lot.

He really studied, and at the end of the first term received three A's and two B's, a very creditable record. What was more important than his record, however, was the fact that he was really enjoying his work; he was intellectually awakened and hungry for learning.

Also, for the first time he really enjoyed the fraternity. Jack Lawrence was proving an able president, and Nu Delta pledged a freshman delegation of which Hugh was genuinely proud. There were plenty of men in the chapter whom he did not like or toward whom he was indifferent, but he had learned to ignore them and center his interest in those men whom he found congenial.

The first term was ideal, but the second became a maelstrom of doubt and trouble in which he whirled madly around trying to find some philosophy that would solve his difficulties.

When Norry returned to college after the Christmas vacation, he told Hugh that he had seen Cynthia. Naturally, Hugh was interested, and the mere mention of Cynthia's name was still enough to quicken his pulse.

"How did she look?" he asked eagerly.

"Awful."

"What! What's the matter? Is she sick?"

Norry shook his head. "No, I don't think she is exactly sick," he said gravely, "but something is the matter with her. You know, she has been going an awful pace, tearing around like crazy. I told you that, I know, when I came back in the fall. Well, she's kept it up, and I guess she's about all in. I couldn't understand it. Cynthia's always run with a fast bunch, but she's never had a bad name. She's beginning to get one now."

"No!" Hugh was honestly troubled. "What's the matter, anyway? Didn't you try to stop her?"

Norry smiled. "Of course not. Can you imagine me stopping Cynthia from doing anything she wanted to do? But I did have a talk with her. She got hold of me one night at the country club and pulled me off in a corner.

She wanted to talk about you."

"Me?" Hugh's heart was beginning to pound. "What did she say?"

"She asked questions. She wanted to know everything about you. I guess she asked me a thousand questions. She wanted to know how you looked, how you were doing in your courses, where you were during vacation, if you had a girl--oh, everything; and finally she asked if you ever talked about her?"

"What did you say?" Hugh demanded breathlessly.

"I told her yes, of course. Gee, Hugh, I thought she was going to cry.

We talked some more, all about you. She's crazy about you, Hugh; I'm sure of it. And I think that's why she's been hitting the high spots. I felt sorry as the devil for her. Poor kid...."

"Gee, that's tough; that's d.a.m.n tough. Did she send me any message?"

"No. I asked her if she wanted to send her love or anything, and she said she guessed not. I think she's having an awful time, Hugh."

That talk tore Hugh's peace of mind into quivering shreds. Cynthia was with him every waking minute, and with her a sense of guilt that would not down. He knew that if he wrote to her he might involve himself in a very difficult situation, but the temptation was stronger than his discretion. He wanted to know if Norry was right, and he knew that he would never have an hour's real comfort until he found out. Cynthia had told him that she was not in love with him; she had said definitely that their attraction for each other was merely s.e.xual. Had she lied to him? Had she gone home in the middle of Prom, week because she thought she ought to save him from herself? He couldn't decide, and he felt that he had to know. If Cynthia was unhappy and he was the cause of her unhappiness, he wanted, he a.s.sured himself, to "do the right thing," and he had very vague notions indeed of what the right thing might be.

Finally he wrote to her. The letter took him hours to write, but he flattered himself that it was very discreet; it implied nothing and demanded nothing.

Dear Cynthia:

I had a talk with Norry Parker recently that has troubled me a great deal. He said that you seemed both unwell and unhappy, and he felt that I was in some way responsible for your depression. Of course, we both know how ingenuous and romantic Norry is; he can find tragedy in a cut finger. I recognize that fact, but what he told me has given me no end of worry just the same.