“Ray! Ray! Ray!
“Rah! Rah! Rah!—”
The cheer gets no farther, for from Professor Swope’s waving napkin fly the knives, forks and spoons, bounding and scattering from end to end of the table like flowers from a cornucopia.
The Dean’s face grows purple, Professor Swope’s goes white. Everyone looks at the latter, horrified at his unprecedented temerity. Throwing down his napkin the Dean stalks from the room and, chattering excitedly, the others follow.
This finishes the Fourth Sequence.
V.
Leaving the professor to clear himself as best he can Dolly lingers discreetly behind. When the room is empty she unlocks the door of the linen closet and with some impatience tells Cupid and Herc that they must go straight to their rooms before they cause further trouble.
They are pathetic in their helplessness. They start to walk out through the reception room—Dolly barely prevents them in time. A glance out the window shows Joe Jakes still on guard under the lamp-post across the street. Dolly sees that by themselves they are incapable of getting home without detection. But she thinks of her duty to the professor—hesitates—
“Come along,” she says finally, “I’ll take you part of the way.”
They go out through the kitchen and, eluding Joe Jakes, start across the campus. Outside the dormitory where Cupid rooms with his brother, she tries to turn back, but Cupid sits down stubbornly on a step and refuses to move.
“I want to be taken home.”
More to get rid of them than to oblige them she leads them upstairs and opens the door of the study shared by the two brothers.
It is a large room with cushioned seats under the leaded windows, arm chairs, work tables, many books and a piano. A bedroom leads out from either side. On the walls are some framed groups—football teams, committees, etc., but no girls’ photographs and no pennants. At present there are half a dozen people in the room—Mimi, her mother, Grace and Ben, who are cooking a Welsh Rarebit, and two other boys, one of whom is playing the piano. Almost as soon as Dolly enters a definite hostility comes into the air.
“Good evening,” says Ben, polite but puzzled.
“They were sleepy,” explains Dolly, indicating Cupid and Herc. “I thought they’d be better off at home.”
The culprits go unashamed to the piano and become musical. Mimi remarks loud enough for Dolly to hear.
“Some people can always find an excuse for attending parties they’re not invited to.”
Dolly turns to her in surprise and is met with an insolent stare. In her annoyance she lays her purse down on the table, where it immediately catches Mimi’s eye. Mimi knows that in that purse is the lipstick.
“I’m sorry to intrude,” flashes Dolly. “This was forced upon me. Good night.”
“Hey, wait a minute,” says Cupid. “I’m going to take you home.”
“You stay right where you are,” says Ben angrily. “You’re not going out of here this evening.”
“I’ve got to take Dolly home.”
“I’ll take her home,” snaps Ben impatiently. Cupid subsides.
Mimi, her eyes still on the purse, has crossed the room and as Dolly turns to Ben with a crisp “Please don’t bother,” she dexterously slides Dolly’s purse from the table into a fold of her gown. Then she saunters cooly away, unaware that Cupid and Herc, though muddled and uncomprehending, have seen her action.
Dolly turns and starts down the stairs and Ben, excusing himself to Mimi and her mother, follows.
About this time Professor Swope confused and distressed by his experience of the evening is coming out of the faculty club. He is in disgrace—the Dean has accepted his protestations of innocence, but still believes that he is in some way responsible. Worse, the professor has lost Dolly. He doesn’t know whether she has departed with disgust at him, or with guilt at having taken the silver herself. At any rate he must find her.
He starts down the street one way, then turns and goes down the other. To Joe Jakes, under his lamp-post, his excited actions appear suspicious. Joe wants to know what has become of the two drunks who disappeared with and it seems to him that this little man is acting very oddly indeed. He takes a menacing step in the professor’s direction.
Professor Swope’s nerves are jumpy and his first thought when he sees the familiar figure coming toward him is that the Dean is having him arrested for stealing the silver. He quickens his pace, so does Joe Jakes, he breaks into a run—Joe Jakes follows.
Over the campus goes the chase, in and out of the moonlight. A branch knocks off the professor’s derby and Joe picks it up without stopping.
Up in the Mannys’ room Cupid and Herc are witnesses to a peculiar accident. They see Mimi remove something from Dolly’s purse and then, looking about for a hiding place, drop the purse into the thin space behind the window seat. There is a look of triumph on her face.
Meanwhile Dolly and Ben are walking silently across the campus, Dolly a little in the lead. They come to a low wall and, to take a short cut, he helps her over it—immediately she is in his arms. With the second kiss he begins to admit the fascination she has for him. Nevertheless he is ashamed of himself and seeing this Dolly feels helpless and unhappy.
Nearing Dolly’s hotel they come to an all night restaurant, crowded with men and girls. The smell of hot dogs drifts out into the night and Dolly thinks of the dinner she was too frightened to eat. She tells Ben she’s hungry. He hesitates—his chin tightens. No, he won’t appear with her in any public place… He tells her to wait for him—he will get something to eat and bring it outside.
Leaning rather sadly against the door of the restaurant watching the gay horseplay of the couples inside, Dolly is startled to see Professor Swope dash wildly by her and duck into the restaurant, closely followed by the campus cop, Joe Jakes. What has happened? Her instinct is to take to her heels, but she doesn’t.
Inside the restaurant Professor Swope, to conceal himself from his pursuer, squeezes in front of two boys taller than himself and, in a trembling voice, asks for a lemonade. Joe Jakes’ eyes roam aboutthe room seeking him and fall upon Ben Manny just leaving the restaurant with a bag of hot dogs and two bottles of ginger ale under his arm. Joe wonders if this can be his man—he is in a dinner coat, and he wears no hat. He seems a little taller than the other one, but Joe determines to follow and see.
Ben and Dolly go along the University Arms which is separated from the street by a tall iron grating. Once inside they hesitate—he wants nothing except to kiss her again, but the moon throws the shadow of the iron grating across her face, as if she were behind prison bars, and sadly now, he turns away.
The long, wide flight of steps leading up to the front door are white in the moonlight. Dolly invites him into the hotel, but he shakes his head and insists these steps are a better place for the picnic.
While he lays it out she fingers a paper that she always carries in the bosom of her dress. It is the letter from her uncle, which clears her from the guilt she expiated in prison. After a struggle she decides not to show it to him. If he really cares for her, nothing will matter.
Ben has no bottle opener for the Coca-Cola.
“I’ll run back to the quick lunch and get one,” he says. “Wait for me for a moment.”
He has hardly gone fifty feet when Joe Jakes seizes him by the arm.
“Got you, young fella,” he says. “What were you doing in the faculty club?”
“Me?” cries Ben in amazement. “I haven’t been near it all evening.”
“Then what did you run away from me for?”
“Me? I didn’t run away from you.”
“You can explain that to the Dean in the morning. Here’s your hat.”
Ben examines it.
“That isn’t my hat.”
“All right,” says Joe. “If you don’t want to take it what do I care. Go right to your room.”
“But Joe—”
“Never mind Joe-ing me. Go to your room. A man my age don’t like Marathons. You can state your case to the Dean in the morning.”
There is no choice but to obey. After all it was just as well. Better not to see her any more at all. As Ben trudges gloomily off across the Campus, Professor Swope is just emerging timorously from the quick lunch. He must find Dolly. With great caution he dodges up the street toward the hotel and slips inside the gate.
There she is on the moonlit steps and then he sees that, tired out with her long day, she is sound asleep. He comes up to her, and thinks how beautiful and innocent she looks—bends over as if to kiss her lips. But No—he is afraid to disturb her sleep. On the steps beside her he sees the lunch prepared for two and his heart melts. What a girl—all this time she has been waiting for him here with something to eat.
He sits down and tentatively nibbles a hot dog—he is very hungry. With the opener from his pocket knife he uncaps a bottle of Coca-Cola.
Outside the grating Joe Jakes watches Ben’s form disappear across the campus. He looks at the derby in his hand. Then with sudden disgust at his unsatisfactory night’s work, he flings it over the iron grating, where it lands at the professor’s feet.
Professor Swope looks up
