Prof. Darmstetter is so irritating! Why, he has just as much need of me! He himself said I was the best subject he could find for the experiment. But even if he had finished his work with the Bacillus, he'd rather teach me, a despised woman, all the science I could master than develop the budding talent of the brightest Columbia boy. The sight of my beauty is a joy to him. Really, I pity the poor man. He makes the great discovery when he's himself too old to profit by it; the Bacillus will not work against Nature. It has brought him only a hopeless longing--
But I shall study. He shall see! Not in the laboratory, of course; that is hardly fitting now. I wouldn't go there again except for the lure of promised beauty--can more loveliness be possible? But I do feel the responsibility of beauty. The wisest and best will crowd about me, and they must find my words worthy the lips that shape them and the voice that utters. And I shall learn from their wisdom.
"There was Hypatia; she was both beautiful and learned," I found myself confiding to a gray squirrel in the Park, and then I laughed and ran home to make my last preparations.
Ethel arranged my hair to-day, though I could hardly yield her the delight of its shining, long undulations. Then she did Milly's as nearly like mine as possible, and Milly did hers. The girls wore white like me, and my aunt was in black. The house was full of flowers; as if it had plunged into seas of them, it dripped with an odourous rosy foam. John sent a box--the extravagant boy!--and there were big American Beauty roses, with stems as long as walking sticks from Pros. and Cadge. Milly had flowers, too, from Mr. Hynes.
At first I wasn't a bit afraid, while acquaintances were dropping in one by one--Mrs. Magoun, Mrs. Crosby, the wife of the managing clerk in Uncle's office, Aunt Marcia--all allies.
Then there came a stir at the door, the magnetic thrill that foreruns a Somebody. And there upon the threshold stood a tall, dashing girl, superbly turned out; not handsome, but fine-looking, dark, decisive, vital--a creature born to command.
I knew her at the first glance. She was the General!
I was for a moment surprised to see her so young and girlish, though I might have known; for she was Milly's schoolmate. I doubt if she's two years my senior, but in social arts and finesse--ah, the difference!