“Perhaps I’d better move,” she said. “This seat is over the wheels.”
“You wouldn’t want me to apologize,” he said. “That would be merely revolting.”
“Just why did you throw me over?” she asked. “I don’t give a darn about you now but I’d like to know.”
“I wanted a little time alone out in the world. Some day I’ll explain, but now all I can think of is that I’ve lost ten months of you.”
Her heart made an odd reminiscent tour of her chest.
“Did you like the game?” she asked. “For a Harvard man you show great interest in Yale.”
“I was doing a little scouting. I played football as a sophomore.”
“I didn’t know you then.”
“You didn’t miss anything. I wasn’t any Van Kamp.”
She laughed.
“I think it was from you I first heard the name. You told me Yale bought him.”
“They did—but I’m not sure it’ll do them much good.”
Instantly alert she demanded, “What do you mean?”
“I shouldn’t have said that. We don’t know anything for certain yet.”
Kiki’s imagination raced over the possibilities. Had Mr. Gittings in his cups boasted of his bargain? Did it have something to do with Rip’s brother?
“It may come to nothing,” he said, “and it doesn’t sound well from me, because I suppose I ought to consider him a rival.”
“That’s all right, I’ve learned not to expect much from you, Alex.”
She got up suddenly and went to the other seat but he followed and bending over her said: “I can’t blame you, Kiki—but I’m very concerned with your happiness.”
“Have I got to go into the day coach?”
“I’ll go up there myself.”
She hated him and for a moment she wished Rip was there, coolly and gracefully “breaking his neck.” But after all this was no football field and Rip wouldn’t show to advantage. Poor Rip—who had done nothing except risen in the world on the leverage of his magnificent body.
From the station she tried without success to get him on the phone—finally reached him next morning at training table. In masked words she told him what Considine had said. There was a long pause at the other end—then his voice with a desperate note:
“I can always leave college.”
“Rip, don’t talk like that. But I want you to be careful. Have you ever told anyone about Gittings?”
“No.”
“Then don’t admit anything. And Rip—remember that whatever happens I’m with you.”
“Thank you, Kiki.”
“I mean it—whatever happens. I wouldn’t mind if everyone knew it.”
Flushed and exalted she hung up the receiver. Her protective instincts were marshaled on his side and it was beginning to feel real. She was proud and pleased when he performed brilliantly against Princeton. There, three days later, she opened to the football news to find a shocking headline.
INELIGIBILITY RUMOR DENIED AT YALE
MAJOR STAR BELIEVED INVOLVED
New Haven, Connecticut: The Chairman of the Yale Athletic Association today denied the rumor that a certain varsity star would not play against Harvard Saturday.
“The same line-up that faced Princeton will start Saturday’s game,” he said. “We have had no official protests against the eligibility of any players.”
The rumor stemmed from Cambridge and has been traced to the Harvard Club in New York. The material at New Haven has been under par this year—only twelve “iron men” were used against Princeton—and the loss of any one of several key players might considerably affect…
Kiki’s heart stood still. Again she ran over all possible avenues of leakage. Mr. Gittings had denied any indiscretion, but the check, drawn on a New York bank, might have passed through the hands of some Harvard man who recognized the name. Yet it would be difficult to produce evidence. Beyond that, Kiki was sure that Rip had been careful—had shied away from an offer to play baseball for a hotel last summer.
In a sudden panic she looked up Alex Considine’s number—startled at the familiar digits. He was in Cambridge but expected back today and off and on all day she called without leaving her name—just missed him at six to find that he would be at the Harvard Club for dinner. Slipping into a dinner dress she drove down to 44th Street and asked a suspicious doorman to take him a note. He came out surprised, without his hat, and seated in a grill nearby she came to the point:
“I saw the paper this morning. It’s Rip Van Kamp they mean, isn’t it?”
“I can’t tell you, Kiki.”
“You did tell me on the train. I want to know what you’ve got against him.”
Alex hesitated.
“I can say this—if we had absolute proof against him we’d have acted by this time.”
“Then you haven’t got proof?”
“At this moment I personally don’t know any proof.”
From his phrasing she guessed at the truth.
“You’re waiting for some proof right now.”
“Are you in love with this man, Kiki?”
“Yes.”
“Somehow I can’t believe it.”
“Can’t you? Well, if you do anything to bar him out I’ll marry him tomorrow night—if he wants me.”
He nodded.
“That I can believe—you’re a stubborn girl, Kiki, and you’re one of the best. But I don’t think you’re in love with Van Kamp.”
Suddenly she was crying angrily because she knew it was true. She was only getting started at being in love. It would be all right, it would come soon, it would atone for everything. But just now until it came she was so vulnerable. She could not avoid comparing Rip, boyish and unoriented, oblivious to so much, to Alex Considine, a grown man, confident and perceptive, with a will of his own making and his own mistakes.
“You’ll see,” she said chokingly, “You’ve always had everything and he’s come up from nothing, and so you try to drag him down. It’s so cruel, so mean.”
“Kiki, I didn’t start this. The information—” He broke off. “You sound as if you knew something—”
“Oh, no,” she said quickly, “But even if there is something I’ll stick by him.”
She got up and left him with the untouched cocktails. Utterly confused she stopped at a telegraph office to send Rip a message of tenderness and cheer.
VI
Rip had given her four tickets and she went up to Cambridge with friends, arriving at the stadium in a thin grisly snow. Remembering last year, the floaty joy and the sunshine, she was sad—even though the morning papers had relieved her worst apprehensions. Neither Athletic Association had given out any statement and the official line-up included Rip’s name. She opened a program.
Left Guard: Van Kamp, 5’11”, 159, 22, Newton High
The short history of a life—the boy from an orphanage with his brain in his nervous system. He was out there now in mid-field facing a crimson player in a white helmet, while a half dollar flipped up and fell in the snow. Yale strung out across the turf behind the ball—the leather boomed and Rip led the race down the field, skirting one blocker, sliding around another to make the first tackle of the game.
“He ought to be an end,” said a man behind her. “He could be anything.”
“But who can play guard like that—watch any halfback and you’re just watching the ball, watch Rip Van Kamp and you’re watching the game.”
The snow fell thicker—when a man slid twice his own length in the muddy mush it made a sentence for paper or radio, giving the game a wild haphazard quality, making it into an obstacle race and a winter sport. The tricks and laterals that were breath-taking anyhow assumed a miraculous flickering aspect in the chalky haze.
She watched Rip sitting on his haunches while the other team huddled. Quick as the play started he was on his feet, borne backward momentarily on a shoulder, then free and over at the other side of the line, running smack upright into the play. That was why the crowd could see him, because he went in like that, it was why his face was ribbed with scabs all through the season.
The half ended with Yale leading, 10-3. It was growing colder, the people next to Kiki were taking measure to keep warm and their voices rose—the girl beside Kiki said to her companion:
“I don’t know him but that’s his brother Harry with the black hat two rows down.”
Kiki looked. Harry was one of those blue faced men who shave futilely twice a day and who have contributed their affliction to our conception of the ungodly. He had no redeeming points—his eyes were set far apart as if pushed out by the spreading and flattening of his nose—yet Kiki felt disloyal as she saw a certain undeniable resemblance.
With the opening of the second half Harvard came to life—within ten minutes roars of triumph tolled across the field from the crimson side and the faces around Kiki were frowning and foreboding. She peered at Rip through field-glasses; as ever he was cool, white and impassive—as the game went into the fourth quarter with the score tied, there was a time when he was the only man on that weary team who seemed alive. That was when he knocked down a dazed Yale man who was trying to run out an intercepted pass from behind his own goal.
Ten minutes to play. Yale, taking the ball on its own twenty, came out of the huddle with both tackles on the right side of the line. Suddenly the left end was in motion running toward the side-line, but two seconds before the ball was snapped cutting back toward his own goal while a halfback stepped up into the line on the right. This made the guard eligible for a pass and Rip caught the soggy ball almost in the clear for a
