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 watchdog.

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 Boulé 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 title of the course. He had three classes 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 damn 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 sexual. 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 assured 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.

Won’t you please write to me just what is wrong⁠—if anything really is and if I have anything to do with it. I shall continue to worry until I get your letter.

Weeks went by and no answer came. Hugh’s confusion increased. He thought of writing her another letter, but pride and common sense forbade. Then her letter came, and all of his props were kicked suddenly from under him.

Oh my dear, my dear [she wrote], I swore that I wouldn’t answer your letter⁠—and here I am doing it. I’ve fought and fought, and fought until I can’t fight any longer; I’ve held out as long as I can. Oh, Hugh my dearest, I love you. I can’t help it⁠—I do, I do. I’ve tried so hard not to⁠—and when I found that I couldn’t help it I swore that I would never let you know⁠—because I knew that you didn’t love me and that I am bad for you. I thought I loved you enough to give you up⁠—and I might have succeeded if you hadn’t written to me.

Oh, Hugh dearest, I nearly fainted when I saw your letter. I hardly dared open it⁠—I just looked and looked at your beloved handwriting. I cried when I did read it. I thought of the letters you used to write to me⁠—and this one was so different⁠—so cold and impersonal. It hurt me dreadfully.

I said that I wouldn’t answer it⁠—I swore that I wouldn’t. And then I read your old letters⁠—I’ve kept every one of them⁠—and looked at your picture⁠—and tonight you just seemed to be here⁠—I could see your sweet smile and feel your dear arms around me⁠—and Hugh, my darling, I had to write⁠—I had to.

My pride is all gone. I can’t think any more. You are all that matters. Oh, Hugh dearest, I love you so damned hard.

Two hours after the letter arrived it was followed by a telegram:

Don’t pay any attention to my letter. I was crazy when I wrote it.

Hugh had sense enough to pay no attention to the telegram; he tossed it into the fireplace and reread the letter. What could he do? What should he do? He was torn by doubt and confusion. He looked at her picture, and all his old longing for her returned. But he had learned to distrust that longing. He had got along for a year without her; he had almost ceased thinking of her when Norry brought her back to his mind. He had to answer her letter. What could he say? He paced the floor of his room, ran his hands through his hair, pounded his forehead; but no solution came. He took a long walk into the country and came back more confused than ever. He was flattered by her letter, moved by it; he tried to persuade himself that he loved her as she loved him⁠—and he could not do it. His passion for her was no longer overpowering, and no amount of thinking could make it so. In the end he temporized. His letter was brief.

Dear Cynthia:

There is no need, I guess, to tell you that your letter swept me clean off my feet. I am still dizzy with confusion. I don’t know what to say, and I have decided that it is best for me not to say anything until I know my own mind. I couldn’t be fair either to you or myself otherwise. And I want to be fair; I must be.

Give me time, please. It is because I care so much for you that I ask it. Don’t worry if you don’t hear from me for weeks. My silence won’t mean that I have forgotten you; it will mean that I am thinking of you.

Her answer came promptly:

Hugh, my dear⁠—

I was a fish to write that letter⁠—and I know that I’ll never forgive myself. But I couldn’t help it⁠—I just couldn’t help it. I am glad that you are keeping your head because I’ve lost mine entirely. Take all the time you like. Do you hate me for losing my pride? I do.

Weeks went by, and Hugh found no solution. He damned college with all his heart and soul. What good had it done him anyway? Here he was with a serious problem on his hands and he couldn’t solve it any better than he could have when he was a freshman. Four years of studying and lectures and examinations, and the first time he bucked up against a bit of life he was licked.

Eventually he wrote to her and told her that he was fonder of her than he was of any girl that he had ever known but that he didn’t know whether he was in love with her or not. “I have learned to distrust my own emotions,” he wrote, “and my own decisions. The more I think the more bewildered I become. I am afraid to ask you to marry me for fear that I’ll wreck both our lives, and I’m afraid not to ask you for the same reason. Do you think that time will solve our problem? I don’t know. I don’t know anything.”

She replied that she was willing to wait just so long as they continued to correspond; she said that she could no longer bear not to hear from him. So they wrote to each other, and the tangle of their relations became more hopelessly knotted. Cynthia never sent another letter so unguarded as her first, but she made no pretense of hiding her love.

As Hugh sank deeper and deeper into the bog of confusion and distress, his contempt for his college “education” increased. One night in May he expressed that contempt to a small group of seniors.

“College is bunk,” said Hugh sternly, “pure bunk. They tell us that we learn to think. Rot! I haven’t learned to think; a child can solve a simple human problem as well as I can. College has played hell with me. I came here four years ago a darned nice kid, if I do say so myself. I was chock-full of ideals and illusions. Well, college has smashed most of those ideals and knocked the illusions plumb to hell. I thought, for example, that all college men were gentlemen; well, most of them aren’t. I thought that all of them were intelligent and hard students.”

The group broke into loud laughter. “Me, too,” said George Winsor when the noise had abated. “I thought that I was coming to a regular educational heaven, halls of learning and all that sort of thing. Why, it’s a farce. Here I am sporting a Phi Bete key, an honor student if you please, and all that I really know as a result of my college ‘education’ is the fine points of football and how to play poker. I don’t really know one damn thing about anything.”

The other men were Jack Lawrence and Pudge Jamieson. Jack was an earnest chap, serious and hard working but without a trace of brilliance. He, too, wore a Phi Beta Kappa key, and so did Pudge. Hugh was the only one of the group who had not won that honor; the fact that he was the only one who had won a letter was hardly, he felt, complete justification. His legs no longer seemed more important than his brains; in fact, when he had sprained a tendon and been forced to drop track, he had been genuinely pleased.

Pudge was quite as plump as he had been as a freshman and quite as jovial, but he did not tell so many smutty stories. He still persisted in crossing his knees in spite of the difficulties involved. When Winsor finished speaking, Pudge forced his legs into his favorite position for them and then twinkled at Winsor through his glasses.

“Right you are, George,” he said in his quick way. “I wear a Phi Bete key, too. We both belong to the world’s greatest intellectual fraternity, but what in hell do we know? We’ve all majored in English except Jack, and I’ll bet anyone of us can give the others an exam offhand that they can’t pass. I’m going to law school. I hope to God that I learn something there. I certainly don’t feel that I know anything now as a result of my four years of ‘higher education.’ ”

“Well, if you fellows feel that way,” said Hugh mournfully, “how do you suppose I feel? I made my first really good record last term, and that wasn’t any world beater. I’ve learned how to gamble and smoke and drink and pet in college, but that’s about all that I have learned. I’m not as fine as I was when I came here. I’ve been coarsened and cheapened; all of us have. I take things for granted that shocked me horribly once. I know that they ought to shock me now, but they don’t. I’ve made some friends and I’ve had a wonderful time, but I certainly don’t feel that I have got any other value out of college.”

Winsor could not sit still and talk. He filled his pipe viciously, lighted it, and then jumped up and leaned against the mantel. “I admit everything that’s been said, but I don’t believe that it is altogether our fault.” He was intensely in earnest, and so were his listeners. “Look at the faculty. When I came here I thought that they were all wise men because they were on the faculty. Well, I’ve found out otherwise. Some of them know a lot and can’t teach, a few of them know a lot and can teach, some of them know a little and can’t teach, and some of them don’t know anything and can’t explain c-a-t. Why, look at Kempton. That freshman, Larson, showed me a theme the other day that Kempton had corrected. It was full of errors that weren’t marked, and it was nothing in the world but drip. Even Larson knew that, but he’s the foxy kid; he wrote the theme about Kempton. All right⁠—Kempton gives him a B and tells him that it is very amusing. Hell of a lot Larson’s learning. Look at Kane in math. I had him when I was a freshman.”

“Me, too,” Hugh chimed in.

“ ’Nough said, then. Math’s dry enough, God knows, but Kane makes it dryer. He’s a born desiccator. He could make Hamlet as dry as calculus.”

“Right-o,” said Pudge. “But Mitchell could make calculus as exciting as Hamlet. It’s fifty-fifty.”

“And they fired Mitchell.” Jack Lawrence spoke for the first time. “I have that straight. The administration seems afraid of a man that can teach. They’ve made Buchanan a full professor, and there isn’t a man in college who can tell what he’s talking about. He’s written a couple of books that nobody reads, and that makes him a scholar. I was forced to take three courses with him. They were agony, and he never taught me a damn thing.”

“Most of them don’t teach you a damn thing,” Winsor exclaimed, tapping his pipe on the mantel. “They either tell you something that you can find more easily in a book, or just confuse you with a lot of ponderous lectures that put you to sleep or drive you crazy if you try to understand them.”

“There are just about a dozen men in this college worth listening to,” Hugh put in, “and I’ve got three of them this term. I’m learning more than I did in my whole three first years. Let’s be fair, though. We’re blaming it all on the profs, and you know damn well that we don’t study. All we try to do is to get by⁠—I don’t mean you Phi Betes; I mean all the rest of us⁠—and if we can put anything over on the profs we are tickled pink. We’re like a lot of little kids in grammar-school. Just look at the cheating that goes on, the copying of themes, and the cribbing. It’s rotten!”

Winsor started to protest, but Hugh rushed on. “Oh, I know that the majority of the fellows don’t consciously cheat; I’m talking about the copying of math problems and the using of trots and the paraphrasing of Literary Digest articles for themes and all that sort of thing. If more than half of the fellows don’t do that sort of thing some time or other in college, I’ll eat my hat. And we all know darned well that we aren’t supposed to do it, but the majority of fellows cheat in some way or other before they graduate!

“We aren’t so much. Do you remember, George, what Jimmie Henley said to us when we were sophomores in English Thirty-six? He laid us out cold, said that we were as standardized as Fords and that we were ashamed of anything intellectual. Well, he was right. Do you remember how he ended by saying that if we were the cream of the earth, he felt sorry for the skimmed milk⁠—or something like that?”

“Sure, I remember,” Winsor replied, running his fingers through his rusty hair. “He certainly pulled a heavy line that day. He was right, too.”

“I’ll tell you what,” exclaimed Pudge suddenly, so suddenly that his crossed legs parted company and his foot fell heavily to the floor. “Let’s put it up to Henley in class tomorrow. Let’s ask him straight out if he thinks college is worth while.”

“He’ll hedge,” objected Lawrence. “All the profs do if you ask them anything like that.” Winsor laughed. “You don’t know Jimmie Henley. He won’t hedge. You’ve never had a class with him, but Hugh and Pudge and I are all in English Fifty-three, and we’ll put it up to him. He’ll tell us what he thinks all right, and I hope to God that he says it is worth while. I’d like to have somebody convince me that I’ve got something out of these four years beside lower ideals. Hell, sometimes I think that we’re all damn fools. We worship athletics⁠—no offense, Hugh⁠—above everything else; we gamble and drink and talk like bums; and about every so often some fellow has to go home because a lovely lady has left him with bitter, bitter memories. I’m with Henley. If we’re the cream of the earth⁠—well, thank the Lord, we’re not.”

“Who is,” Lawrence asked earnestly.

“God knows.”