The Cost | Page 9

Kappa, joined the woman's literary
and debating society, and was fascinated and absorbed by crowding
new events, associations, occupations, thoughts. In spite of herself her
old-time high spirits came flooding back. She caught herself
humming--and checked herself reproachfully. She caught herself
singing--and lowered it to humming. She caught herself whistling--and
decided that she might as well be cheerful while she waited for fate to
befriend her and Jack. And she found that she thought about him none
the less steadfastly for thinking hopefully.
Battle Field put no more restraint upon its young women than it put
upon its young men--and it put no restraint upon the young men. In
theory and practice it was democratic, American, western--an
outgrowth of that pioneer life in which the men and the women had
fought and toiled and enjoyed, side by side, in absolute equality, with
absolute freedom of association. It recognized that its students had been
brought up in the free, simple, frank way, that all came from a region
where individualism was a religion, with self-reliance as the cardinal
principle of faith and self-development as the goal.
There were no dormitories at Battle Field then. Olivia and Pauline lived
in one of the hundred or more boarding-houses--a big, square, white
"frame," kept by a Mrs. Trent, the widow of a "hero of two wars."
Her hero had won her with his uniform when he returned from the
Mexican War. His conduct was so irregular and his income so
uncertain that it had been a relief to her when he departed for his

second war. From it he had brought home a broken constitution, a
maimed body and confirmed habits of shiftlessness and drunkenness.
His country took his character and his health and paid him in exchange
a pension which just about kept him in whisky and tobacco. So long as
he was alive Mrs. Trent hated him as vigorously as her Christianity
permitted. When he was safely in his grave she canonized him; she put
his picture and his sword, belt and epaulets in the conspicuous place in
the parlor; she used his record for gallantry to get herself social position
and a place of honor at public gatherings.
Her house stood back from the highway in a grove of elms and walnuts.
Its angularity was relieved by a porch with a flat roof that had a railing
about it and served as a balcony for the second-story lodgers. There
were broad halls through the middle of the house down-stairs and up.
Olivia and Pauline had the three large rooms in the second story on the
south side. They used the front room as a study and Pauline's bedroom
was next to it.
Late one afternoon she was seated at the study window watching a
cherry-red sun drop through the purple haze of the autumn. She became
conscious that some one was on the balcony before the window of the
front room across the hall. She leaned so that she could see without
being seen. Sharp against the darkening sky was the profile of a young
man. Olivia joined her and followed her glance. The profile remained
fixed and the two girls watched it, fascinated. It certainly was a
powerful outline, proud and stern, but with a mouth that was sweet in
its kindliness and gentleness.
"I wonder what he's thinking about," said Olivia, in an undertone; he
was not fifteen feet from them. "I suppose, some scheme for
conquering the world."
Most of Battle Field's youth came from the farms of that western
country, the young men with bodies and brains that were strong but
awkward. Almost all were working their way through--as were not a
few of the women. They felt that life was a large, serious business
impatiently waiting for them to come and attend to it in a large, serious
way better than it had ever been attended to before. They studied hard;
they practised oratory and debating. Their talk was of history and
philosophy, religion and politics. They slept little; they thought--or
tried to think--even more than they talked.

At a glance this man was one of them, a fine type.
"He's handsome, isn't he?" said Pauline.
"But--" She did not finish; indeed it was not clear to her what the rest of
her protest was. He reminded her of Dumont--there was the same look
of superiority, of the "born to lead." But his face seemed to, have some
quality which Dumont's lacked--or was it only the idealizing effect of
the open sky and the evening light?
When the bell rang for supper he apparently did not hear it. The two
girls went down and had talked to the others a few minutes and all had
seated themselves before he entered. An inch or so above six feet,
powerful