am,” replied Molly, bravely trying to keep her voice from shaking. “I only arrived an hour or so ago. I – I didn’t know they would lock – ” She broke down altogether and slipping into a big wicker chair sobbed bitterly. “Oh, I wish – I wish I’d stayed at home.”
“Why, you poor little girl,” exclaimed the man. “You have had a beastly time for your first day at college, but you’ll come to like it better and better all the time. Come, dry your eyes and I’ll start you on your way to your lodgings. Where are you stopping?”
“Queen’s.”
“Suppose you drink some hot soup before you go. It will warm you up,” he added kindly, taking a cup of hot bouillon from the tray and placing it on the arm of her chair.
“But it’s your supper,” stammered Molly.
“Nonsense, there’s plenty more. Do as I tell you,” he ordered. “I’m a professor, you know, so you’ll have to obey me or I’ll scold.”
Molly drank the soup without a word. It did comfort her considerably and presently she looked up at the professor and said:
“I’m all right now. I hope you’ll excuse me for being so silly and weak. You see I felt so far away and lonesome and it’s an awful feeling to be locked out in the cold about a thousand miles from home. I never was before.”
“I’m sure I should have felt the same in your place,” answered the professor. “I should probably have imagined I saw the ghosts of monks dead and gone, who might have walked there if the Cloisters had been several hundreds of years older, and I would certainly have made the echoes ring with my calls for help. The Cloisters are all right for ‘concentration’ and ‘meditation,’ which I believe is what they are intended to be used for on a warm, sunny day; but they are cold comfort after sunset.”
“Is this your study?” asked Molly, rising and looking about her with interest, as she started toward the door.
“I should say that this was my play room,” he replied, smiling.
“Play room?”
“Yes, this is where I hide from work and begin to play.” He glanced at a pile of manuscript on his desk.
“I reckon work is play and play is work to you,” observed Molly, regarding the papers with much interest. She had never before seen a manuscript.
“If you knew what an heretical document that was, you would not make such rash statements,” said the professor.
“I’m sure it’s a learned treatise on some scientific subject,” laughed Molly, who had entirely regained her composure now, and felt not the least bit afraid of this learned man, with the kind, brown eyes. He seemed quite old to her.
“If I tell you what it is, will you promise to keep it a secret?”
“I promise,” she cried eagerly.
“It’s the libretto of a light opera,” he said solemnly, enjoying her amazement.
“Did you write it?” she asked breathlessly.
“Not the music, but the words and the lyrics. Now, I’ve told you my only secret,” he said. “You must never give me away, or the bottom would fall out of the chair of English literature at Wellington College.”
“I shall never, never tell,” exclaimed Molly; “and thank you ever so much for your kindness to-night.”
They clasped hands and the professor opened the door for her and stood back to let her pass.
Then he followed her down the passage to another door, which he also opened, and in the dim light she still noticed that quizzical look in his eyes, which made her wonder whether he was laughing at her in particular, or at things in general.
“Can you find your way to Queen’s Cottage?” he asked.
“Oh, yes,” she assured him. “It’s the last house on the left of the campus.”
The next moment she found herself running along the deserted Quadrangle walk. Under the archway she flew, and straight across the campus – home.
It was not yet seven o’clock, and the Queen’s Cottage girls were still at supper. A number of students had arrived during the afternoon and the table was full. There were several freshmen; Molly identified them by their silence and looks of unaccustomedness, and some older girls, who were chattering together like magpies.
“Where have you been?” demanded Nance Oldham, who had saved a seat for her roommate next to her own.
All conversation ceased, and every eye in the room was turned on blushing Molly.
“I – I’ve been locked up,” she answered faintly.
“Locked up?” repeated several voices at once. “Where?”
“In the Cloisters. I didn’t realize it was six o’clock, and some one locked the door.”
Molly had been prepared for a good deal of amusement at her expense, and she felt very grateful when, instead of hoots of derision, a nice junior named Sallie Marks, with an interesting face and good dark eyes, exclaimed:
“Why, you poor little freshie! What a mediæval adventure for your first day. And how did you finally get out?”
“One of the professors heard me call and let me out.”
“Which one?” demanded several voices at once.
“I don’t know his name,” replied Molly guardedly, remembering that she had a secret to keep.
“What did he look like?” demanded Frances Andrews, who had been unusually silent for her until now.
“He had brown eyes and a smooth face and reddish hair, and he was middle aged and quite nice,” said Molly glibly.
“What, you don’t mean to say it was Epiménides Antinous Green?”
“Who?” demanded Molly.
“Never mind, don’t let them guy you,” said Sallie Marks. “It was evidently Professor Edwin Green who let you in. He is professor of English literature, and I’ll tell you for your enlightenment that he was nicknamed in a song ‘Epiménides’ after a Greek philosopher, who went to sleep when he was a boy and woke up middle-aged and very wise, and ‘Antinous’ after a very handsome Greek youth. Don’t you think him good-looking?”
“Rather, for an older person,” said Molly thoughtfully.
“He’s not thirty yet, my child,” said Frances Andrews. “At least, so they say, and he’s so clever that two other colleges are after him.”
“And he’s written two books,” went on Sally. “Haven’t you heard of them – ‘Philosophical Essays’ and ‘Lyric Poetry.’”
Molly was obliged to confess her ignorance regarding Professor Edwin Green’s outbursts into literature, but she indulged in an inward mental smile, remembering the lyrics in the comic opera libretto.
“He’s been to Harvard and Oxford, and studied
