We cannot make bargains for blisses,Nor catch them like fishes in nets,And sometimes the thing our life misses Helps more than the thing which it gets.
--CARY
ELINOR WREAM spent the holidays in the East and was two weeks late in entering school again.Then her Uncle Lloyd tightened the rules,exacting full measure for lost time,until she bewailed to her girl friends that she had no opportunity even to make fudge or wash her hair.
"Were you sorry to come back,then,Norrie?"her uncle asked one evening when they were alone in their library,and Elinor was lamenting her hard lot.
"No,I want to be with you,Uncle Lloyd."She was sitting on the arm of his morris chair,softly stroking his heavy hair away from his forehead.
"Looks like it,the way you hurried back,"Dr.Fenneben said,smiling.
"But Uncle Joshua is n't well,although,to be honest,he didn't seem a bit anxious to have me stay.He's so wrapped up in Sanscrit he has no time to live in the present.
Why didn't he ever marry?"
"You have just said why,"her uncle answered her.
"Why did n't you ever marry.Were you ever in love?"The library lamp cast only a shaded light over Lloyd Fenneben lounging comfortably in his chair.To a woman's eye he would have seemed the picture of an ideal husband.
"Yes,I was in love once.I did n't marry because--because--I didn't.""How romantic!Was it unrequited,or money,or what?"Norrie asked,eagerly.
"Or what,"he answered,and her finer sense made her change the subject.
"Say,Uncle Lloyd,Uncle Joshua says he wants me to marry.""What's he up to now?Tell me about it."Norrie was charming tonight in a dainty red evening gown that set off her pretty face,crowned with beautiful dark hair.
Somehow the sight of her made deeper the void in Fenneben's life--since that love affair of his own long ago.
"Well,"Norrie went on,"Uncle says I'm to marry rich,because my papa expected me to.He said papa had money which was mamma's and he used it for college endowments,because the Wreams love colleges best,and that it was his wish,and it's Uncle Joshua's too,that I should marry well.
I knew I came honestly by my love of spending.I inherited it from my mother.Aren't the Wreams all funny men to just see nothing in money,but a cap and gown and a Master's Degree?But you are a human being,Uncle Lloyd.You wouldn't leave a daughter dependent on her uncles and use her money to endow colleges,would you?"The white arm stole round his neck affectionately,as Elinor added softly,"I'm going to tell you something else.
Uncle Joshua wants me to marry Professor Burgess.""Do you want to marry him?"Fenneben asked.
"He hasn't asked me to yet.But he is such a gentleman and he has a fortune in his own name,or in trust,or something like that.
It would please the Cambridge folks,and Uncle Joshua expects me to consent,and I've never disobeyed uncle's wishes,so Icouldn't refuse now.And,well,if he'll wait till I'm ready,I guess it will suit me.""He'll wait all right,if he wants you,Norrie.He must wait until you graduate,"the Dean declared.
"Oh,yes;a Wream without a college diploma is like a ship without a compass,a mere derelict on life's sea.I'm in no hurry anyhow,"and she began to talk of other things.
In the months that followed Trench had no need to watch Professor Burgess in his relation to Dennie Saxon,for Burgess had no thought of her other than of kindly sympathy.That is,Burgess thought he had no thought.
He knew he was in love with Elinor,knew that back in Cambridge before he was graduated from the university.He had been told that Elinor liked luxurious living,and he had money--he had told Fenneben as much in their first interview.Everything seemed to be settled now,for Joshua Wream had written Burgess the kind of letter only a very old man,and an ab-stract scholar,and a bachelor would ever write,telling all that he had said to Norrie.He made it obligatory that Fenneben should first give his sanction to the union.
He requested also that Burgess would never mention this letter to his dear young niece,and he expressly stipulated that Norrie should graduate at Sunrise first.He ended with an old man's blessing and with the assurance that with Elinor safely provided for his conscience (why his conscience?)would be at rest,and he could die in peace.
So there was smooth sailing at Sunrise for many months.
Elinor was always charming,and Dr.Fenneben seemed oblivious to the situation,least of all to putting up any objection,which,according to brother Joshua,would have blocked the game of love.
There was time now for profound research,the study of types,seclusion,and the advantage of geographical breath which had brought the Professor to Kansas,and which he heeded less and less with the passing days.
For he found himself more and more living in the lives of the students.
He had been ashamed,once,of having been Dennie Saxon's escort;and he never knew when she came to be the one person in Lagonda Ledge to whom he turned for confidence and aid in many things.
Meanwhile the big boy from the western claim was as surely going up the rounds of culture as the Professor was coming down to the common needs of common minds,and both were unconscious then that back of each was Dr.Fenneben,"dear old Funnybone"to the student body,playing each man for his king row in the great game of life fought out in Sunrise-by-the-Walnut.
Toward Elinor,Victor Burleigh seemed utterly indifferent.
Even Lloyd Fenneben,who had caught an insight into things on the night of the October storm,and had begun to read that new line in the boy's face,failed to grasp what lay back of those innocent-looking,wide-open eyes,whose tiger-golden gleam showed but rarely now.
Vic was easily the most popular fellow in his class,and the year at Sunrise had worked a marvelous change in him.
"You are a darned smooth citizen,"Trench drawled,as he and Burleigh stood in the shade by the campus gate on the closing day of their freshman year.
A group of girls had been bidding the two good-bye for the summer.