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
