Dolly had wired Professor Swope she was coming and as the crowd poured from the train, she picked him out in his frock coat, waiting nervously for her on the platform.
“Well—I came,” she said. “Are you sorry?”
“Not at all.” And after one look at her he wasn’t.
The University is situated in a town of ten thousand people. Its grey Gothic architecture sprawls for miles over a green undulating campus—with here and there for variety, a hall that was old before the revolution began. On this same day the campus was alive with people—there were alumni in their reunion costumes, fathers and mothers, small brothers and sisters, prom girls, undergraduates in white bound for tennis or in tweeds bound for golf. Suddenly Dolly grew rigid as a long line of convicts walking in lock step and preceded by some pitiful little child convicts turned a corner into sight.
“How horrible,” she thought. “A prison even here!”
She breathed easier as she saw a sign the leader carried on a pole: “Reunion. Class of 1920.”
Her suitcase was enormous. It was all the professor could do to lift it off the ground. They had walked scarcely fifty yards, and the professor had already stopped several times to rest, when the Manny party in a big Marmon drove past, scattering insolent dust.
They passed through a Gothic arch and walked down the main street where undergraduates sat in chairs and benches tipped back against the storefronts and watched the girls go by. They stopped at the University Arms, an old inn where the professor had arranged for her to stay.
When she emerged and the week-end began.
They started for—a ball? No, an athletic contest?—wrong again. It was the professor’s idea that Dolly would appreciate a nice lecture on sociology that by good luck was scheduled for that day. As they walked along he rubbed his hands with pleasure—oblivious to the glances Dolly was attracting. A hundred eyes followed her—one young man paid her the compliment of falling over backward in his chair.
Evidently that was their destination—this pleasant colonial building with a jazzy band booming outside and couples strolling on the porch and a few young men loitering on the lawn outside. Her steps quicken, her cheeks brighten. How kind of the little professor to come out of his retirement and give her this good time!
But—what’s this, they’re going past—to another building, a recitation hall next door? That sign.
LECTURE ON CRIMINAL SOCIOLOGY
Phineas Hasslacher, Ph.D.
Professors and their wives are already going in. Dolly looks around in despair. The music is loud from the house beside.
“I know you’ll enjoy this,” says the professor, pointing at the sign and waiting for her exclamation of pleasure. At this moment her eyes fall on Cupid Manny.
He has just come out the Slide and Glide Club, hot and discouraged. He has been dancing with Grace for an hour and he needs a drink—safe behind a colonial pillar he tips a flask into his mouth. Then he sees Dolly. Gosh—why isn’t she his partner instead of this hippopotamus in ruffles. But he sees where she’s bound and guesses that she has her troubles too.
Why not invite them both in?
“Hey! wait a minute,” he calls. Dolly’s face brightens. He crosses the lawn and issues the invitation.
No. The professor shakes his head and looks significantly at Cupid. It’s impossible. But—that music. Dolly’s feet flirt eagerly with the sidewalk.
“Can’t we, professor?” she begs.
“Come on,” insists Cupid. “You’ll learn much more about crime in here.”
Takes the lecture sign and places it in front of the Club door.
“This way, professor.”
The professor is half pulled, half persuaded toward the door ofthe Slide and Glide Club. Meanwhile a new column of faculty couples arrive. They see the sign and cross the lawn toward it. The first couple has almost reached the Club house steps when Cupid sees what’s happening and returns the notice to its proper place. The column of ponderous and absent-minded pedagogues winds about like a snake following the sign—but this time to the right door.
There has been an interested observer to the scene—a gentleman of whom we will see more. He is Joe Jakes, the proctor or campus cop—a stout, heavily moustached, plainclothes man responsible to the Dean for the students’ behavior. He doesn’t like the incident at all.
Meanwhile the professor still protesting has been persuaded into the Slide and Glide Club. It consists of a great stoneflagged central hall, looking out through high French windows on to a veranda and a row of tennis courts. On one side of the hall is a card room where chaperones are sitting down to bridge, on the other a great dim billiard room where couples stroll during the intermissions, knock the billiard balls about or occupy one of the large soft divans which line the walls.
In the central hall about twenty couples are dancing to the music of a Bohemian orchestra. Like all college dances in the East and South, this is a “Cut-in” affair—a stag may break in on whom he likes and dance with her until he himself is relieved. The unfortunate man who is dancing with Cupid’s girl, Grace Jones, has been “stuck” with her for some time. He has now resorted to the unusual experiment of holding a five dollar bill behind her back as a reward to anyone who will cut in.
Ben Manny, standing among the stags, sees Dolly and Professor Swope come in. Politely but coldly he shakes hands.
But he is alone in his indifference to her. No sooner has she danced off with Cupid than he is besieged with requests for an introduction. He has no choice but to comply and is thus put in the position of sponsoring a girl of whose presence his brother disapproves.
Dolly is more than popular—she is a riot. The professor follows her about looking for a dance, but some young fellow is always too nimble for him and cuts in ahead. Several times he taps the shoulder of the man she’s dancing with, only to find she’s already sailed off in someone else’s arms.
Ben Manny stands in the stag-line frowning. The annoying conviction creeps over him that by not dancing with Dolly he’s missing something. She passes close to him and their eyes meet; her mouth is but a yard away and irresistably he takes a step after her—
Too late. A man grabs his arm hurriedly.
“I’ve got to leave immediately, Ben. Would you mind taking care of Miss Jones?”
And Grace Jones is unceremoniously thrust into his arms. He is in for an arduous hour.
Herc Harkness, a tall, lean boy, a little stewed, innocently calls Mimi Haughton’s attention to the fact that Dolly’s partners all look as if they were going to kiss her. When men are close to her they seem to see her lips surrounded by a crowd of honey bees.
An intermission in the dance brings Mimi and Dolly close together. With feigned cordiality, Mimi takes out her powder puff and pretends to look for a lipstick.
“How annoying,” she exclaims. “I’ve lost it. May I borrow yours?”
But a look in her eyes warns Dolly. She answers innocently that she hasn’t got a lipstick with her. Mimi smiles to herself knowing that Dolly has it in her handbag and moves contemptuously.
Dolly and Cupid walk out into the billiard room and sit in a window open to the gathering June dusk. Two boys have just finished playing tennis on the court outside and are putting up their rackets. It is a lovely and romantic night. Cupid, a little tight now, groans to think that he must pass the evening with Grace. He produces his flask and offers it to Dolly, who refuses it. He drains it and in doing so leans back farther and farther until he loses his balance and topples head over heels out the open window. So surprisingly neat has been his exit that Dolly jumps up with astonishment at finding that she is suddenly alone.
At this moment Grace, discouraged at her luck on the dance floor, has maneuvered the unhappy Ben into the billiard room and is suggesting that they sit down on a couch and talk. Ben is desperate—he has been with her for half an hour. His eyes, roaming about looking for an excuse, fall on a slim figure walking through the dark billiard room toward the music. Ben doesn’t recognize her but he pretends to and exclaims to Grace.
“That girl is looking for me. We have this dance.”
He dashes across the room and in terror lest Grace pursue him, he seizes Dolly and dances her around between the tables with,explaining and apologizing. Only then does he realize who he has in his arms.
“I wondered if you were going to dance with me,” Dolly says, looking up at him.
He has no answer.
“You hate me. Don’t you? If you keep on hating me I’m going back to New York tonight.”
“Don’t be absurd,” he says quickly.
“But you think I have no business here.”
“No, I don’t,” he says embarrassed. “I suppose any girl as pretty as you can go anywhere, even—” He pauses.
“Even if she’s just out of jail,” she finishes for him, and adds, “So you really think I’m pretty?”
He looks down at her in the half darkness. Outside the window a boy lights a gas street lamp and the glow falls on her face. Grace has gone out of the billiard room, intercepting, annexing
