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with understanding kindness.
"Psychic," the girls whispered, and "spiritual." Yet so radioactive were
her nerves, so adventurous her trust in rather vaguely conceived
sweetness and light, that she was more energetic than any of the
hulking young women who, with calves bulging in heavy-ribbed
woolen stockings beneath decorous blue serge bloomers, thuddingly
galloped across the floor of the "gym" in practise for the Blodgett
Ladies' Basket-Ball Team.
Even when she was tired her dark eyes were observant. She did not yet
know the immense ability of the world to be casually cruel and proudly
dull, but if she should ever learn those dismaying powers, her eyes
would never become sullen or heavy or rheumily amorous.
For all her enthusiasms, for all the fondness and the "crushes" which
she inspired, Carol's acquaintances were shy of her. When she was
most ardently singing hymns or planning deviltry she yet seemed
gently aloof and critical. She was credulous, perhaps; a born
hero-worshipper; yet she did question and examine unceasingly.
Whatever she might become she would never be static.
Her versatility ensnared her. By turns she hoped to discover that she
had an unusual voice, a talent for the piano, the ability to act, to write,
to manage organizations. Always she was disappointed, but always she
effervesced anew--over the Student Volunteers, who intended to
become missionaries, over painting scenery for the dramatic club, over

soliciting advertisements for the college magazine.
She was on the peak that Sunday afternoon when she played in chapel.
Out of the dusk her violin took up the organ theme, and the candle-light
revealed her in a straight golden frock, her arm arched to the bow, her
lips serious. Every man fell in love then with religion and Carol.
Throughout Senior year she anxiously related all her experiments and
partial successes to a career. Daily, on the library steps or in the hall of
the Main Building, the co-eds talked of "What shall we do when we
finish college?" Even the girls who knew that they were going to be
married pretended to be considering important business positions; even
they who knew that they would have to work hinted about fabulous
suitors. As for Carol, she was an orphan; her only near relative was a
vanilla-flavored sister married to an optician in St. Paul. She had used
most of the money from her father's estate. She was not in love--that is,
not often, nor ever long at a time. She would earn her living.
But how she was to earn it, how she was to conquer the world--almost
entirely for the world's own good--she did not see. Most of the girls
who were not betrothed meant to be teachers. Of these there were two
sorts: careless young women who admitted that they intended to leave
the "beastly classroom and grubby children" the minute they had a
chance to marry; and studious, sometimes bulbous-browed and
pop-eyed maidens who at class prayer-meetings requested God to
"guide their feet along the paths of greatest usefulness." Neither sort
tempted Carol. The former seemed insincere (a favorite word of hers at
this era). The earnest virgins were, she fancied, as likely to do harm as
to do good by their faith in the value of parsing Caesar.
At various times during Senior year Carol finally decided upon
studying law, writing motion-picture scenarios, professional nursing,
and marrying an unidentified hero.
Then she found a hobby in sociology.
The sociology instructor was new. He was married, and therefore taboo,
but he had come from Boston, he had lived among poets and socialists

and Jews and millionaire uplifters at the University Settlement in New
York, and he had a beautiful white strong neck. He led a giggling class
through the prisons, the charity bureaus, the employment agencies of
Minneapolis and St. Paul. Trailing at the end of the line Carol was
indignant at the prodding curiosity of the others, their manner of staring
at the poor as at a Zoo. She felt herself a great liberator. She put her
hand to her mouth, her forefinger and thumb quite painfully pinching
her lower lip, and frowned, and enjoyed being aloof.
A classmate named Stewart Snyder, a competent bulky young man in a
gray flannel shirt, a rusty black bow tie, and the green-and-purple class
cap, grumbled to her as they walked behind the others in the muck of
the South St. Paul stockyards, "These college chumps make me tired.
They're so top-lofty. They ought to of worked on the farm, the way I
have. These workmen put it all over them."
"I just love common workmen," glowed Carol.
"Only you don't want to forget that common workmen don't think
they're common!"
"You're right! I apologize!" Carol's brows lifted in the astonishment of
emotion, in a glory of abasement. Her eyes mothered