She prayed that he would deny her statements, that he would say they knew each other by instinct—anything, so long as he did not agree.
“I certainly don’t know you the way you’re talking now,” he said almost roughly, his pride hurt and his mind in a turmoil. “I know that we don’t know each other, but I never thought that you thought that mattered.”
Her hands clenched more tightly for an instant—and then lay open and limp in her lap.
Her lips were trembling; so she smiled. “I didn’t think it mattered until you asked me to marry you. Then I knew it did. It was game of you to offer to take a chance, but I’m not that game. I couldn’t marry a strange man. I like that man a lot, but I don’t love him—and you don’t want me to marry you if I don’t love you, do you, Hugh?”
“Of course not.” He looked down in earnest thought and then said softly, his eyes on the table, “I’m glad that you feel that way, Cynthia.” She bit her lip and trembled slightly. “I’ll confess now that I don’t think that I love you, either. You sweep me clean off my feet when I’m with you, but when I’m away from you I don’t feel that way. I think love must be something more than we feel for each other.” He looked up and smiled boyishly. “We’ll go on being friends anyhow, won’t we?”
Somehow she managed to smile back at him. “Of course,” she whispered, and then after a brief pause added: “We had better go now. Your train will be leaving pretty soon.”
Hugh pulled out his watch. “By jingo, so it will.”
He called the waiter, paid his bill, and a few minutes later they turned into Fifth Avenue. They had gone about a block down the avenue when Hugh saw someone a few feet ahead of him who looked familiar. Could it be Carl Peters? By the Lord Harry, it was!
“Excuse me a minute, Cynthia, please. There’s a fellow I know.”
He rushed forward and caught Carl by the arm. Carl cried, “Hugh, by God!” and shook hands with him violently. “Hell, Hugh, I’m glad to see you.”
Hugh turned to Cynthia, who was a pace behind them. He introduced Carl and Cynthia to each other and then asked Carl why in the devil he hadn’t written.
Carl switched his leg with his cane and grinned. “You know darn well, Hugh, that I don’t write letters, but I did mean to write to you; I meant to often. I’ve been traveling. My mother and I have just got back from a trip around the world. Where are you going now?”
“Oh, golly,” Hugh exclaimed, “I’ve got to hurry if I’m going to make that train. Come on, Carl, with us to Grand Central. I’ve got to get the five-ten back to Haydensville. My folks are coming up tomorrow for commencement.” Instantly he hated himself. Why did he have to mention commencement? He might have remembered that it should have been Carl’s commencement, too.
Carl, however, did not seem in the least disturbed, and he cheerfully accompanied Hugh and Cynthia to the station. He looked at Cynthia and had an idea.
“Have you checked your bag?”
“Yes,” Hugh replied.
“Well, give me the check and I’ll get it for you. I’ll meet you at the gate.”
Hugh surrendered the check and then proceeded to the gate with Cynthia. He turned to her and asked gently, “May I kiss you, Cynthia?”
For an instant she looked down and said nothing; then she turned her face up to his. He kissed her tenderly, wondering why he felt no passion, afraid that he would.
“Goodbye, Cynthia dear,” he whispered.
Her hands fluttered helplessly about his coat lapels and then fell to her side. She managed a brave little smile. “Goodbye—honey.”
Carl rushed up with the bag. “Gosh, Hugh, you’ve got to hurry; they’re closing the gate.” He gripped his hand for a second. “Visit me at Bar Harbor this summer if you can.”
“Sure. Goodbye, old man. Goodbye Cynthia.”
“Goodbye—goodbye.”
Hugh slipped through the gate and, turned to wave at Carl and Cynthia. They waved back, and then he ran for the train.
On the long trip to Haydensville Hugh relaxed. Now that the strain was over, he felt suddenly weak, but it was sweet weakness. He could graduate in peace now. The visit to New York had been worth while. And what do you know, bumping into old Carl like that! Cynthia and he were friends, too, the best friends in the world, but she no longer wanted to marry him. That was fine. … He remembered the picture she and Carl had made standing on the other side of the gate from him. “What a peach of a pair. Golly, wouldn’t it be funny if they hit it off. …”
He thought over every word that he and Cynthia had said. She certainly had been square all right. Not many like her, but “by heaven, I knew down in my heart all the time that I didn’t want to get married or even engaged. It would have played hell with everything.”
XXVII
The next morning Hugh’s mother and father arrived in the automobile. He was to drive them back to Merrytown the day after commencement. At last he stood in the doorway of the Nu Delta house and welcomed his father, but he had forgotten all about that youthful dream. He was merely aware that he was enormously glad to see the “folks” and that his father seemed to be withering into an old man.
As the underclassmen departed, the alumni began to arrive. The “five year” classes dressed in extraordinary outfits—Indians, Turks,
