THE HONOR GIRL

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

About the Author

1920s

T
here was an audible hush, even above the tinkling notes of the piano, as Elsie stepped out onto the floor of the gymnasium and bowed to her audience.

This was the
pièce de résistance
of the program, and every eye was fastened upon the girl who had received more honors than any other girl in school. She had gone beyond mere speculation or jealousy and had become the admiration of the girls, the pride of the teachers. They delighted in her every achievement. Whatever she did, whether to lead in a debate, to work out a difficult problem in mathematics, or translate some complex sentence in Latin, they settled into silence and prepared to be entertained. That she had recently discovered a new gift in athletics was the crowning pleasure of her friends. And now upon the occasion of the annual Maypole Dance, given by the members of the gymnasium classes, Elsie Hathaway was to be distinguished again. The audience settled into instant quiet, with pleased expectation on every face.

Many distinguished men and women were present, parents and friends of the school, the smiling members of the faculty, a considerable number of students from the near-by men’s college, and even a sprinkling of gray-haired college professors. It was an audience worthy of anyone’s best efforts.

Just above the platform in the gallery sat Professor Bowen, the principal of the school, gray-haired, dignified, scholarly, with gentleness and kindliness written all over his strong, true face.

By his side sat a stranger, a former pupil in another school, a most attractive young man so far as looks were concerned, who had stopped over for a day to visit his old friend and teacher who had been his greatest inspiration during high school days.

Most of the program was over. The tall, white-robed queen with flowing hair, and wreaths of laurel and asparagus fern, like emerald frost-work over her white garments, had marched in with her fairy attendants dressed in all manner of fantastic costumes. They had placed her upon the throne, crowned her, danced about her and the Maypole; danced separately and together; danced with pink and blue and white ribbons around and around the pole until it stood sheathed in its woven rainbow.

Cameron Stewart, at first amused by the brilliant, ever-changing panorama, had begun to furtively count the remaining numbers on the program and wish that he and his dear Professor Bowen might slip away and have a good old-time talk. There were hosts of questions he wanted to ask, and as many things he wanted to tell, and here they had to sit and watch these girls playing like giddy butterflies. There was a good deal about girls’ schools that was like child’s play, he thought. Nonsense. You wouldn’t catch men wasting their time on silliness like that. He wondered that Professor Bowen could care to sit through it all. He was not even one of the judges—why didn’t he slip out? Would it do to suggest it? He had to take that early train in the morning, if possible, and there would be so little time to talk after this performance was over!

He cast a furtive glance at Professor Bowen to see if a suggestion of this kind would be welcome, but he saw on the old, kindly face an expression of deep interest, expectation, and satisfaction—the same that used to bloom for himself sometimes when he had done well at school, the look he had met when he stood up to deliver the valedictory speech. It had stirred his heart to its depths and had been his inspiration during that long and carefully prepared speech, helping him to put the right fire into his words. The interest in that kind face had been one of the long-cherished pictures on the walls of his memory. And was it possible that it could be worn for the sake of a foolish dancing girl? It was worth nothing then. It was but put on to please! He must tear the picture down from that most honored place in his heart and memory and realize that he was growing up and that nothing was as it had seemed when he was a boy. He was conscious of a distinct twinge of disappointment and jealousy, as with a deep, involuntary sight he turned to see what or who had the power to bring out the look which previously had not rested on that noble face for nothing.

Elsie Hathaway stood poised for an instant, surveying her audience, cool, self-possessed, lovely, a veritable fairy in her make-up.

She was small and slight, a dainty head set upon dainty shoulders, her garments green, soft, and fluffy. Even her slippers were apple green and her gown of green gauze, modest and simple, with a round neck, not too low, and little short puffed sleeves fitted closely to her round, pink arms. The greenness set off the red gold hair. She had taken off the wreath of green roses she had worn when she marched with the queen around the Maypole, and looked as simple as any wood nymph about to dance upon the moss of the forest. She swept a glance over her audience, then looked up in the gallery straight to where the stranger sat with the gray-haired professor, and gave him one cool, questioning glance. Somehow her eyes challenged his interest even against his will. They had so much quiet assurance for a mere little high school dancer. But he sat up and gave cold, critical attention to the movements of the wood nymph.

She swept her audience a grave, dignified bow, almost too dignified for a wood nymph, he thought. It gave the impression of an intellectual wood nymph, he thought, solemnly but sweetly performing some woodland ceremony.

Then she moved with the music, light as a thistledown blown by the wind, fanciful as sunlight playing with the leaves of the trees and sifting through branches to the shadowy moss in yellow, twinkling kisses. Her every movement was utmost grace, not the slightest pretense, but perfect self-control, perfect confidence in her own supple power. He watched her as the others did; as anyone would watch a beautiful instrument. As he grew less astonished at the beauty of the gliding movements, a perfect poetry of motion, he began to brood over that look on his old professor’s face. After all, he reflected, there was the child in every heart, for even an old man would be carried away with a pretty girl dancing. Nevertheless, he watched the whirling bit of feathery green as breathlessly as the rest of the audience, till she at last swept another low bow and glided out of sight and then he turned to see that old face beside him beaming with the same light it had worn when Professor Bowen came to congratulate him upon the honors he had won in high school.

It fell blankly upon the younger man. It brought bitterness to his soul. He was amazed. He couldn’t bear to find his idol but human after all. A mere dancing puppet, pretty, of course, but after all a puppet! And Professor Bowen! Devotee of art and science and literature! But before he could find words to express his disappointment, Professor Bowen spoke.

“She’s a wonderful little girl!” he said. “Brightest student we have had for years! She simply swept the honors away from everyone else.”

“In athletics, I suppose!” said the young man, his lip curling sarcastically.

Professor Bowen turned in surprise at the tone and looked his young friend in the face anxiously. That did not sound like his dear Cameron. Was the boy’s head swelling with all his honors?

“Not at all,” said Professor Bowen, adjusting his have-to-be-convinced tone of voice that he used in cases of resistant or lazy scholars. “She’s a wonder in any direction you take her. She’s a marvel of keenness in mathematics, quick as a flash in Latin, up in literature and the sciences. I never saw anything like it. She studies early and late, takes little or no time for recreation, and is as sweet and kindly with it all as you ever saw a girl. She was working so hard her health was breaking under it, and we insisted upon her giving some time to the development of her body. She struggled hard against it at first, but I had a long talk with her about it, how she would be no good at all if her body broke down, and finally convinced her; this is the result. She plunged into athletics with as much vim as anything else, and put her perfect self-control into tangible form for our pleasure.

“Of course this dancing business is merely to please the gymnasium teacher, but it shows what wonderful power the girl has. She’s the best all-around developed student I ever saw, with no exception,” the old man finished emphatically.

The younger man bit his lips. He was mortified that he had a rival in his dear old professor’s heart. A girl, too, a dancing girl!

“And what good will it all be to her,” said the young man, bitterly. “She may dance well and do difficult mathematical problems, and all that, but what will she accomplish? I don’t suppose she expects to earn her living by dancing or mathematics, either. She doesn’t look it. How will she be any better than other girls? I don’t know whether I believe much in higher education for women. It doesn’t prepare them for their lives as wives and mothers.”

He spoke with the intolerance of youth.

The old professor looked at the young man with keen pity in his eyes. To think that Cameron had got no further than that! He could not see the bitterness in the heart of his young idolater.

“No, she probably will never earn her living by her knowledge, for she will not need to do so. She has a wealthy uncle and is not studying with any such purpose in view. But I can’t believe, my dear friend, that you don’t think a woman is better for every advantage she can have.”

“Of course she is,” said the younger man, half vexed with himself. “But I was wondering how you could be so pleased over a mere pretty frivolity like this. It didn’t seem like you!”

The old professor smiled.

“I was pleased over the many tests the child has stood and shines in them all. She’s a rare girl. She’s pure gold. You don’t know her.”