A Reversion To Type | Page 5

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, Fr?ulein M��ller'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, Fr?ulein.'
"'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