Frances, standing, the pennant in her hand, watched the team jump the ropes, spent, worn, but happy with victory. Lawson was still in the arena, easing the defeat of the visitors by skilful flattery of their play, when she drove out. She watched the men, as she drove down the road, running along the field path through the sere grasses, their arms close to their sides, their sweaters up to their chins, the hair on their foreheads heavy with sweat. Lawson overtook them just where the path came out into the road. He was the last. His play had gone far to winning the day. Frances with quick fingers unfastened the rosette on her breast and flung it to him as she went spinning by.
Lawson crushed it in his hand and ran on; his bath, his clothes, they cost him short time. He slipped from his room, down the quadrangle before the crowd was well back.
As it chanced, Frances, when he rang the bell of the professor's house, was half-way up the stair. An open door and drawn portière showed an empty room beyond, the firelight shining in the library darkened by the coming twilight. The hall was dusky. Frances' supple figure leaned over the banister.
Susan banged the door as she went through. She was not yet won to "fur-awayers."
"It was splendid, splendid!" cried Frances, coming slowly down, her hand slipping along the banister.
He stood at the foot, silent, looking up at her, his hair damp and tossed into heavy locks on his forehead, his face ruddy with work and haste--strong, alert, nerved to forgetfulness of everything save one feeling. His eyes, masterful, drew her to him, slowly, steadfastly, step by step; on the last stair she paused, her hand trembling about the carving on the newel post, she could not look in his eyes, she saw instead her rosette in his button-hole.
For him, the cap he held in his hand fluttered to his feet; he held out both hands.
His eyes met hers. Her breast rose in a long breath. The dusky hall, his face shining there, the world empty save for themselves; it was the setting of fate. In one whirling thought the pages of all the old romances she had dreamed over held and impelled her, she was one of them. She was throbbing, sentient with the spirit they rhymed. It was this that beat to suffocation in heart and pulse, and held her helpless. She leaned heavily against the banister. And just below, his face on a level with hers, his eyes, with neither laughter nor triumph, but passionate pleading, searching her face, he stood. He put his arms about her gently, closed them around her passionately, and kissed her,--a joy he had not dreamed he or any man could feel, surging through him; and then she had wrenched herself from him and sped upward.
