In a Little Town Part 11

Along the paths of the campus a few women were sauntering, for the students and teachers in the Women's Annex had the privilege of the libraries, the laboratories, and lecture-rooms.

Across Litton's field of view pa.s.sed a figure that caught his eye.

Absently he followed it as it enlarged with approach. He realized that it was Prof. Martha Binley, Ph.D., who taught Greek over there in the Annex.

"How well she is looking!" he mused.

The very thought startled him, as if some one had spoken unexpectedly.

He wondered that he had noticed her appearance. After the window-sill blotted her from view he still wondered, dallying comfortably with the reverie.

IV

There was a knock at his door and in response to his call the door opened--and she stood there.

"May I come in?" she said.

"Certainly."

Before he knew it some impulse of gallantry hoisted him to his feet. He lifted a bundle of archeological reviews from a chair close to his desk and waited until she sat down. The chair was nearer his than he realized, and as Professor Binley dropped into it she was so close that Professor Litton pushed his spectacles up to his forehead.

It was the first time she had seen his eyes except through gla.s.ses darkly. She noted their color instantly, woman-like. They were not dull, either, as she had imagined. A cloying fragrance saluted his nostrils.

"What are the flowers you are wearing, may I ask?" he said. He hardly knew a harebell from a peony.

"These are hyacinths," she said. "One of the girls gave them to me. I just pinned them on."

"Ah, hyacinths!" he murmured. "Ah yes; I've read so much about them. So these are hyacinths! Such a pretty story the Greeks had. You remember it, no doubt?"

She said she did; but, schoolmaster that he was, he went right on:

"Apollo loved young Hyacinthus--or Huakinthos, as the Greeks called it--and was teaching him to throw the discus, when a jealous breeze blew the discus aside. It struck the boy in the forehead. He fell dead, and from his blood this flower sprang. The petals, they said, were marked with the letters Ai, Ai!--Alas! Alas! And the poet Moschus, you remember, in his 'Lament for Bion,' says:

"Nun huakinthe lalei ta sa grammata kai pleon aiai!

"Or, as I once Englished it--let me see, I put it into hexameters--it was a long while ago. Ah, I have it!"

And with the orotund notes a poet a.s.sumes when reciting his own words, he intoned:

"Now, little hyacinth, babble thy syllables--louder yet--Aiai!

Whimper with all of thy petals; a beautiful singer has perished."

Professor Binley stared at him in amazement and cried: "Charming!

Beautiful! Your own translation, you say?"

And he, somewhat shaken by her enthusiasm, waved it aside.

"A little exercise of my Freshman year. But to get back to our--hyacinths: Theocritus, you remember, speaks of the 'lettered hyacinth.' May I see whether we can find the words there?"

He bent forward to take and she bent forward to give the flowers. Her hair brushed his forehead with a peculiar influence; and when their fingers touched he noted how soft and warm her hand was. He flushed strangely. She was flushed a little, too, possibly from embarra.s.sment--possibly from the warmth of the day, with its insinuation of spring.

He pulled his spectacles over his eyes in a comfortable discomfiture and peered at the flowers closely. And she peered, too, breathing foolishly fast. When he could not find the living letters he shook his head and felt again the soft touch of her hair.

"I can't find the words--can you? Your eyes are brighter than mine."

She bent closer and both their hands held the flowers. He looked down into her hair. It struck him that it was a remarkably beautiful idea--a woman's hair--especially hers, streaked as it was with white--silken silver. When she shook her head a snowy thread tickled his nose amusingly.

"I can't find anything like it," she confessed.

Then he said: "I've just remembered. Theocritus calls the hyacinth black--_melan_--and so does Vergil. These cannot be hyacinths at all."

He was bitterly disappointed. It would have been delightful to meet the flower in the flesh that he knew so well in literature. Doctor Martha answered with quiet strength:

"These are hyacinths."

"But the Greeks--"

"Didn't know everything," she said; "or perhaps they referred to another flower. But then we have dark-purple hyacinths."

"Ah!" he said. "Sappho speaks of the hyacinth as purple--_porphuron_."

Thus the modern world was reconciled with the Greek and he felt easier; but there was a gentle forcefulness about her that surprised him. He wondered whether she would not be interested in hearing about his edition of Nonnus. He a.s.sumed that she would be, being evidently intelligent. So he told her. He told her and told her, and she listened with almost devout interest. He was still telling her when the students in other cla.s.ses stampeded to lunch with a many-hoofed clatter. When they straggled back from lunch he was still telling her.

It was not until he was interrupted by an afternoon cla.s.s of his own that he realized how long he had talked. He apologized to Professor Binley; but she said she was honored beyond words. She had come to ask him a technical question in prosody, as from one professor to another; but she had forgotten it altogether--at least she put it off to another visit. She hastened away in a flutter, feeling slightly as if she had been to a tryst.

Litton went without his lunch that day, but he was browsing on memories of his visitor. He had not talked so long to a woman since he could remember. This was the only woman who had let him talk uninterruptedly about himself--a very superior woman, everybody said.

When he went to his room that night he was still thinking of hyacinths and of her who had brought them to his eyes.

He knocked from his desk a book. It fell open at a page. As he picked it up he noted that it was a copy of the anonymous old spring rhapsody, the _Pervigilium Veneris_, with its ceaselessly reiterated refrain, "To-morrow he shall love who never loved before." As he fell asleep it was running through his head like a popular tune: _Cras amet qui nunquam amavit; quique amavit cras amet_.

It struck him as an omen; but it did not terrify him.

V

Professor Martha called again to ask her question in verse technic. The answer led to further talk and the consultation of books. She was a trifle nearsighted and too proud to wear gla.s.ses, so she had to bend close to the page; and her hair tickled his nose again foolishly.

Conference bred conference, and one day she asked him whether she would dare ask him to call. He rewarded her bravery by calling. She lived in a dormitory, with a parlor for the reception of guests. Male students were allowed to call on only two evenings a week. Litton did not call on those evenings; yet the fact that he called at all swept through the town like a silent thunderbolt. The students were mysteriously apprised of the fact that old Professor Litton and Prof. Martha Binley were sitting up and taking notice. To the youngsters it looked like a flirtation in an old folks' home.

Litton's very digestion was affected; his brain was in a whirl. He was the prey of the most childish alarms; gusts of petulant emotion swept through him if Martha were late when he called; he was mad with jealousy if she mentioned another professor.

She was growing more careful of her appearance. A new youth had come to her. She took fifteen years off her looks by simply fluffing her hair out of its professorial constriction. Professor Mackail noticed it and mentioned to Professor Litton that Professor Binley was looking ever so much better.

"She's not half homely for such an old maid!" he said.

Professor Litton felt murder in his heart. He wanted to slay the reprobate twice--once for daring to observe Martha's beauty and once for his parsimony of praise.

That evening when he called on Martha he was tortured with a sullen mood. She finally coaxed from him the astounding admission that he suspected her of flirting with Mackail. She was too new in love to recognize the ultimate compliment of his distress. She was horrified by his distrust, and so hurt that she broke forth in a storm of tears and denunciation. Their precious evening ended in a priceless quarrel of amazing violence. He stamped down the outer steps as she stamped up the inner.