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Show 1,,niHlniiinM;i!!!:nHi!:iiiiiniiiiiiiiiiiiiinii!!iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiniiniii!niiiiiiiiHiiiiii:iiiniiiiiiiin ; I By BOOTH TARKINGTON j 5 Copyright by Doubl?day, Page S Company E FiiiiMIIIlllEIIIIIKEllllllllllllElillllllllillllllUIIlIIIllllltllllllUIIIII llllllllllllllllllllinillllllllllllUIIEIIIIMlIilllEICllIIMHllIlilUlllirii CHAPTER IX. Continued. 11 Most uncomfortably astonished, Ramsey took his hands out of his pockets, pock-ets, picked a leaf from a lilac bush beside be-side the path, and put the stem of the leaf seriously into a corner of his mouth, before finding anything to say. Well well, all right," he finally responded. re-sponded. "I'll tell you If it's anything any-thing I know about." "You know about it," said Dora. "That Is, you certainly do if you were at your 'frat' meeting last night. Were you?" "Yes, I was there," Ramsey answered, an-swered, wondering what in the world she wanted to know, though he supposed sup-posed vaguely that it must be something some-thing about Colburn, whom he had several times seen walking with her. "Of course I couldn't tell you much," he added, with an afterthought. "You see, a good deal that goes on at a 'fraf meeting isn't, supposed to be talked about." "Yes," she said, smiling faintly, though with a satire that missed Urn. Tve been a member of a sorority since September, and I think I have an idea of what could be toid or not told. Suppose we walk on, if you don't mind. My question needn't embarrass you." Nevertheless, as they slowly went on together, Ramsey was embarrassed. He felt "queer." They had known each other so long; in a way had shared so much,' sitting daily for years near each other and undergoing the same outward experiences; they had almost "grown up together," yet this was the first time they had ever talked together or walked together. "Wen" he said. "If you want to ask anything it's all right for me to tell you well, I just as soon, I guess." "It has nothing to do with the secret proceedings of your 'frat,' " said Dora, primly. "What I want to ask about has been talked of all over the place today. Everyone has been saying it was your 'frat' that sent the first telegram tele-gram to members of the government offering support in case of war with Germany. They say you didn't even wait until today, but sent off a mes- rnn-rt loo Ifrlit- Whnt T wnntpd to 0"6 it,t,L - - - ask you.was whether this story is true or not?"' "Why, yes," said Ramsey, mildly. "That's what we did." She uttered an exclamation, a sound of grief and of suspicion confirmed. "Ah 1 I was afraid so !" '"Afraid so?' What's the matter?" he asked, and because she seemed excited ex-cited and troubled, he found himself not quite so embarrassed as he had been at first; for some reason her agitation agi-tation made him feel easier. "What was wrong about that?" "Oh, it's all so shocking and wicked wick-ed and mistaken !" she cried. , "Even the faculty has been doing it, and half the other 'frats' and sororities ! And it was yours that started it." "Yes, we did," he said, thoroughly puzzled. "We're the oldest 'frat' here, and of course" he chuckled modestly "of course we think we're the best. Do you mean you believe we ought to've sat back and let somebody else start It?" "Oh, no!" she answered, vehemently. "Nobody ought to have started it! That's the trouble; don't you see? If - nobody had started It none f it might t have happened. The rest mightn't 2 have caught It. It mightn't have got Into their heads. A war thought is the most conlagious thought In the world, i1 but If it can be kept from starting, it can be kept from being contagious. It's just when people have got into an emotional state, or a state of smouldering smoul-dering rage, that everybody ought to - he so terribly careful nit to think war thoughts or make war speeches or send war telegrams! I thought oh, I was so sure I'd convinced Mr. Colburn Col-burn of all this, the lr.t time we talked of it ! lie seemed to understand, under-stand, and I was sure he agreed with me." She bit bor lip. "lie was only pretending 1 see that now !" "I guess he must 'a' been," snld Iinmsey, with admirable simplicity. "He didn't talk about anything like that lust night. He was as much for it as anybody.." "I've no doubt !" Ramsey made bold to look at her out of the side of his eye, and as she wis gazing tensely forward he continued contin-ued his observation for some time. She was obviously controlling agitation, almost al-most controlling tears, which seemed to threaten her very wide-open eyes; for those now fully grown and noticeable notice-able cye-wlnkers of hers were subject ' fluctuations Indicating such a threat. She looked "hurt," and Ramsey Ram-sey was touched. There was something human about her, then, after all. And If he had put his feeling into words at the moment, he would have said that he guessed maybe he could stand this ; olc girl, for a few minutes sometime-better sometime-better than he'd alwnvs thought he could. ""cll." h ,Id, "Colburn prob'ly wouldn't want to hurt your feelings oi anything. Colburn" J "He? "no didn't! I haven't the fointest persona-, interest c what he Old." "Ohr satd Ramsey. "Well, cx-rise m. V thought pvob'ly you were sere because he'd jollied you about, this pacifist stuff, and then" "No !" she said, sharply. "I'm not thinking of his having agreed with me and fooling me about it. He just wanted to make a pleasant impression on a girl, and said anything he thought would please her. I don't care whether he does things like that or not. What I care about is that the principle didn't reach him and that he mocked it ! I don't care about a petty treachery treach-ery to me. personally, but I " F'raternal loyalty could not quite brook this. "Brother Colburn is a perfectly per-fectly honor'ble man," said Ramsey, solemnly. "He is one of the most honor'ble men in this " "Of course!" she cried. "Oh. can't I make you understand that I'm not condemning him for a little flattery to me? I don't care two straws for his showing that I didn't influence him. lie doesn't interest me, please understand." under-stand." Ramsey was altogether perplexed. "Well, I don't see wdiat makes you go for him so hard, then." "I don't." "But you said he was treach " "I don't condemn him" for it," she insisted, in-sisted, despairingly. "Don't you see the difference? I'm not condemning anybody ; I'm only lamenting." "What about?" "About all of you that want war!" "My golly!" Ramsey exclaimed. "You dou't think those Dutchmen were right to drown babies and " "No ! I think they were ghastly murderers! I think they were detestable detesta-ble and fiendish and monstrous and " "Well, then, my gooduess! What do you want?" "I dou't want war!" "You don't?" "I want Christianity!" she cried. T can't think of tne Germans without hating them, and so today, when all the world Is hating them, I keep myself my-self from thinking of them as mud) as I can. Already half the world is full of war ; you want to go to war to make things right, but it won't; it will only make more war!" "Well, I" "Don't you see what you've done, you boys?" she said. "Don't you set 'WWW tiffed Www t$$m 1 mpr x There Was Something Human About Her, Then, After All. what you've done with your absurd telegram? That started the rest: they thought they all had to send telegrams like that." "Well, the faculty " "Even they mightn't have thought of It i'f It hadn't been for the Hrst one. Vengeance Is the most terriliJe thought ; once you put It into people's minds that they ought to have it, it runs away with them." "Well. It isn't mostly vengeance we're after, at all. There's a !ot more to It than just getting even wilh " She did not heed him. "You're all blind! You don't see what you're doing; do-ing; you don't even see whnt you've dime " to this peaceful place here. You've tilled it full of thoughts of fury and killing and massacre" "Why. no," said Ramsey. "It was those Dutch did that to ns ; anil, besides be-sides there's more to It than you " "No. there isn't." she Interrupted. "It's just the old brutal spirit that na- '. , C tl,., thl.V WPfP Hons innoru in-ui i'"- ,." - onJv tribes; it's the tribe spirit, and an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. It's those things and the love of lighting men have always loved to fight. Civilization hasn't taken it out of them; men still have the brute in them that loves to tight!" "I don't think so." said Ramsey. "Americans don't love to fight: I don't know about other countries, but we don't. Of course, here and there. th.s some fellow iln.t nfcps to hunt around for scraps, but I never saw more than three or four tn my life that acted that way. Of course a football team often has a scrapper or two on it, out that's different." "No." she said. "I think you all really love to fight" Ramsey was roused to become argumentative. argu-mentative. "I don't see where you get the idea. Colburn isn't that way, and back at school there wasn't a single boy that was anything like that." "What !" She stopped, and turned suddenly to face him. "What's the matter?" he said, stopping, stop-ping, too. Something he said had startled her, evidently. "How can you say such a thing?" she cried. "You love to fight!" "Me?" "You do! You love fighting. Yau always have loved fighting." He was dumfounded. "Why, I never had a fight in my life!" She cried out in protest of such prevarication. pre-varication. "Well, I never did," he insisted. UllIU 1,)' . "Why, you had a fight about me!" "No, I didn't." "With Wesley Bender!" Ramsey chuckled. "That wasn't a fight !" "It wasn't?" "Nothing like one. We were just guyin' him a-bout about gettin' slicked up. kind of. because he sat in front of you ; and he hit me with his book strap and I chased him off. Gracious, no; that wasn't a fight !" "But you fought Linski only last fall." ( Ramsey chuckled again. "That wasn't even as much like a fight as the one with Wesley. I just told this Linski I was goin' to give him a punch In the sn I just told him to look out because 1 was goin' to hit him, aud then I did it, and waited to see if he wanted to do' anything about It, and he didn't. That's all there was to it, and it wasn't any more like fighting than than feeding chickens is." She laughed dolefully. "It seems to me rather more like it than that !" "Well, it wasn't." They had begun to walk on again, and Ramsey was aware that they had passed the "frat house," where his dinner was probably growing cold. He was aware of this, but not sharply or insistently. Curiously enough, he did not think about it. He had begun to find something pleasant in the odd interview, in-terview, and in walking beside a girl, even though the girl was Dora Yocum. He made no attempt to account to himself for anything so' peculiar. For a while they went slowly together, to-gether, not speaking, and without destination, des-tination, though Ramsey vaguely took it for granted that Dora was going somewhere. But she wasn't. They emerged from the part of the small town closely built about the university and came out upon a bit of parked land overlooking the river; and here Dora's steps slowed to an indeterminate indeter-minate halt near a bench beneath a maple tree. "1 think I'll stay here a while," she said ; and as he made no response, sire asked : "Hadn't you better be going hack to your 'frat house' for your dinner? din-ner? 1 didn't mean for you to come out of your way witli me; I only wanted want-ed to get an answer to my question. You'd better be running back." "Well" lie stood irresolute, not sure that he wanted his dinner just then. It would have amazed him to face the fact deliberately de-liberately that perhaps -he preferred being with' Dora Yocum to eating. However, he faced no such fact, nor any fact, but lingered. "Well " he said again. "You'd hotter go.'- "I guess I can get my dinner pretty near any time. I don't " He nad a thought. "Did you " "Did I what?" "Did you have your dinner before I met you?" "No." "Well, aren't you " She shook her head. "I don't want any." "Why not?" "I don't think people have very much appetite today and yesterday." she said, with the hint of a sad laugh, "all over America." "No; I guess that's so." "It's too terrible!" she snld. "I can't sit and eat when 1 think of the Lusitania of all those poor, poor people peo-ple strangling in the water " "No; I guess nobody can eat much, if they think about that." "And of what it's going to bring, if we let It." she went on. "As if this killing weren t enough, we want to mid our killing! Oh. that's the most terrible ter-rible thing of all the thing it makes within us! Don't you understand?" ' She turned to him appealingly. and he felt queerer than ever. Dusk had fallen. Where they stood, under the young-leaved maple tree, there was but a faint lingering of afterglow, and in this mystery her face glimmered wnn and sweet; so that Ramsey, just thru. uhs like one who discovers an old pan. used in the Kitchen, to he made of chased silver. "Well, I don't feel -much like (Lnrrcr rig'... now." he said. ' A " we could Ml wxk awhile on th w I'h. prob'lj -(TO BK CONT..VI ;D.) |