A Reversion To Type | Page 4

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