The Yale stand came alive with hope, but almost immediately time was called and there was a puzzled murmur from the crowd. Three men with an air of a delegation had appeared at the Yale bench and the coaches were on their feet talking to them while the substitutes, shrouded in blankets, gathered around the argument. A moment later one substitute threw off his blanket and dashed out of the group, warming up; then seized his head guard, ran out and reported to the referee. The murmur grew when he spoke to Rip Van Kamp and the voices around Kiki were asking:
“What is it?”
“Taking Van Kamp out?”
“They’re crazy. He isn’t hurt.”
“Can you beat it? With the score tied!”
Kiki saw Rip tear off his headgear and run to the sidelines. Still ignorant of what had happened the crowd rose in a wild thundering cheer, which died away in wonder as he exchanged words with the coach, turned and ran toward the showers. The murmur broke out again—this time the guesses bordered on the truth.
“Was he put out? Did he foul somebody?”
“They didn’t pull him out because they wanted to.”
“It must be Van Kamp that the newspapers—”
It was all through the crowd in a minute—the connection was made by everyone at once and the confirmation drifted up from the seats closest to the field. Rip Van Kamp had been taken out on a protest by the Harvard Athletic Association.
Kiki shrank down in her seat covering her face as if she were the next victim of a mob. It had happened—here at the very end they had taken it all away from Rip, sent him off like a disgraced schoolboy. In a second she was on her feet pushing past her friends, running up the aisle and down the dark entrance and then along under the stand in the direction he had taken.
“Where’s the dressing room?” she cried. A vacuous drunk looked at her blankly and there was a roar overhead as the game resumed its course. She ran from gate to gate along the snowy cinder walk until a guard directed her, adding:
“You haven’t a chance of getting in there. They don’t even let old players in.”
“When do they come out?”
He told her and she went to an iron grill and waited. After a long time she heard the game end with the perfunctory disappointed cheering of a tie score and then saw the first dribble of the crowd come down the runways, then the great waves of it, surging past her as if it were rolling, careless and insensible, over her and over Rip…
Time passed. There were only streams, then trickles and finally individuals like drops. A truck marked Harvard Crimson drove up in a rush and a boy jumped out with a bundle of papers.
“Final game score! Harvard protests Van Kamp! Yale Guard played in West!”
Kiki bought a paper and held it with trembling fingers. The thing was in hasty large type just under the score.
Van Kamp was removed from the game on Harvard’s claim that he played with Almara College in Oklahoma in 1934. Identification was made by his co-ed wife…
That was all, but Kiki could have read nothing more. After she had said aloud in a fierce voice “That’s a lie,” she knew suddenly and without question that it was true.
VII
Much later she wondered how Alex Considine knew where to look, for it was he who found her sitting against a cement pillar with the paper in her lap, staring at nothing.
“I have a car,” he said, “We can walk to it if you’ll let me help you.”
“I’m all right. I just sat down to think things over.”
“I’ve been looking for you, Kiki. Just at the end I hoped it wasn’t going to happen. At first the girl wouldn’t talk until—”
“Don’t tell me,” Kiki said quickly. “What will they do to Rip?”
“I imagine he’ll have to leave college. He must have known the rules.”
“Oh, poor Rip—poor Rip.”
Suddenly she told him about the money from Mr. Gittings, everything.
“And I wish it had been more,” she said passionately. “He deserved it. I didn’t want him to die like Ted Coy with nothing left but his gold football.”
“He was a great player—they can’t take that away from him and he’ll probably play professionally.”
“Oh, but it’s all spoiled now—and he was so beautiful.”
They drove into Boston through the twilight.
“It’s a long trip to New York,” he said. “Why don’t we go out in the country to some friends of mine. I know you don’t want to be engaged to me again but supposing we just get married? I can vouch for the weather on the Nile.”
When she was silent he said:
“You’re thinking of Van Kamp.”
“Yes. I wish there was something I could do. If I could only think that he wasn’t alone.”
“You love him?”
“No. I was lying to you that night. But I keep thinking of how they’ll turn on him—when he’s given them so many grand afternoons.”
He pulled up the car suddenly.
“Shall I take you to him—I know where the team’s staying.”
Kiki hesitated.
“I haven’t got anything for him now. It was all wrong—the directions were different. I’ll go with you, Alex.”
“I’m glad.”
The car sped on through the city, turning the right corners, stopping at the right signs, and then into the country, always gathering speed—on the right road at last.
