The Song of the Lark by Willa Cather (best reads .TXT) 📕

his face, though it had the cool, unimpeachable fairness possible only to a very blond young man, was by no means happy. A page shuffled into the room and looked about. When he made out the dark figure in a shadowy corner, tracing over the carpet pattern with a cane, he droned, “The lady says you can come up, sir.”

Fred picked up his hat and gloves and followed the creature, who seemed an aged boy in uniform, through dark corridors that smelled of old carpets. The page knocked at the door of Thea’s sitting-room, and then wandered away. Thea came to the door with a telegram in her hand. She asked Ottenburg to come in and pointed to one of the clumsy, sullen-looking chairs that were as thick as they were high. The room was brown with time, dark in spite of two windows that opened on Union Square, with dull curtains and carpet, and heavy, respectable-looking furniture in somber colors. The place was saved from utter dismalness by a coal fire under the black marble mantelpiece⁠—brilliantly reflected in a long mirror that hung between the two windows. This was the first time Fred had seen the room, and he took it in quickly, as he put down his hat and gloves.

Thea seated herself at the walnut writing-desk, still holding the slip of yellow paper. “Dr. Archie is coming,” she said. “He will be here Friday morning.”

“Well, that’s good, at any rate,” her visitor replied with a determined effort at cheerfulness. Then, turning to the fire, he added blankly, “If you want him.”

“Of course I want him. I would never have asked such a thing of him if I hadn’t wanted him a great deal. It’s a very expensive trip.” Thea spoke severely. Then she went on, in a milder tone. “He doesn’t say anything about the money, but I think his coming means that he can let me have it.”

Fred was standing before the mantel, rubbing his hands together nervously. “Probably. You are still determined to call on him?” He sat down tentatively in the chair Thea had indicated. “I don’t see why you won’t borrow from me, and let him sign with you, for instance. That would constitute a perfectly regular business transaction. I could bring suit against either of you for my money.”

Thea turned toward him from the desk. “We won’t take that up again, Fred. I should have a different feeling about it if I went on your money. In a way I shall feel freer on Dr. Archie’s, and in another way I shall feel more bound. I shall try even harder.” She paused. “He is almost like my father,” she added irrelevantly.

“Still, he isn’t, you know,” Fred persisted. “It wouldn’t be anything new. I’ve loaned money to students before, and got it back, too.”

“Yes; I know you’re generous,” Thea hurried over it, “but this will be the best way. He will be here on Friday did I tell you?”

“I think you mentioned it. That’s rather soon. May I smoke?” he took out a small cigarette case. “I suppose you’ll be off next week?” he asked as he struck a match.

“Just as soon as I can,” she replied with a restless movement of her arms, as if her dark-blue dress were too tight for her. “It seems as if I’d been here forever.”

“And yet,” the young man mused, “we got in only four days ago. Facts really don’t count for much, do they? It’s all in the way people feel: even in little things.”

Thea winced, but she did not answer him. She put the telegram back in its envelope and placed it carefully in one of the pigeonholes of the desk.

“I suppose,” Fred brought out with effort, “that your friend is in your confidence?”

“He always has been. I shall have to tell him about myself. I wish I could without dragging you in.”

Fred shook himself. “Don’t bother about where you drag me, please,” he put in, flushing. “I don’t give⁠—” he subsided suddenly.

“I’m afraid,” Thea went on gravely, “that he won’t understand. He’ll be hard on you.”

Fred studied the white ash of his cigarette before he flicked it off. “You mean he’ll see me as even worse than I am. Yes, I suppose I shall look very low to him: a fifth-rate scoundrel. But that only matters in so far as it hurts his feelings.”

Thea sighed. “We’ll both look pretty low. And after all, we must really be just about as we shall look to him.”

Ottenburg started up and threw his cigarette into the grate. “That I deny. Have you ever been really frank with this preceptor of your childhood, even when you were a child? Think a minute, have you? Of course not! From your cradle, as I once told you, you’ve been ‘doing it’ on the side, living your own life, admitting to yourself things that would horrify him. You’ve always deceived him to the extent of letting him think you different from what you are. He couldn’t understand then, he can’t understand now. So why not spare yourself and him?”

She shook her head. “Of course, I’ve had my own thoughts. Maybe he has had his, too. But I’ve never done anything before that he would much mind. I must put myself right with him⁠—as right as I can⁠—to begin over. He’ll make allowances for me. He always has. But I’m afraid he won’t for you.”

“Leave that to him and me. I take it you want me to see him?” Fred sat down again and began absently to trace the carpet pattern with his cane. “At the worst,” he spoke wanderingly, “I thought you’d perhaps let me go in on the business end of it and invest along with you. You’d put in your talent and ambition and hard work, and I’d put in the money and⁠—well, nobody’s good wishes are to be scorned, not even mine. Then, when the thing panned out big, we could share together. Your doctor friend hasn’t cared half so