A Reversion To Type

She had never felt so tired of it all, it seemed to her. The sun streamed hot across the backs of the shining seats into her eyes, but she was too tired to get the window-pole. She watched the incoming class listlessly, wondering whether it would be worth while to ask one of them to close the shutter. They chattered and giggled and bustled in, rattling the chairs about, and begging one another's pardon vociferously, with that insistent politeness which marks a sharply defined stage in the social evolution of the young girl. They irritated her excessively--these little airs and graces. She opened her book with a snap, and began to call the roll sharply.

Midway up the room sat a tall, dark girl, not handsome, but noticeably well dressed. She looked politely at her questioner when spoken to, but seemed as far in spirit as the distant trees toward which she directed her attention when not particularly addressed. She seemed to have a certain personality, a self-possession, a source of interest other than collegiate; and this held her apart from the others in the mind of the woman who sat before the desk.

What was that girl thinking of, she wondered, as she called another name and glanced at the book to gather material for a question. What a perfect taste had combined that dark, brocaded vest with the dull, rough cloth of the suit--and she dressed her hair so well! She had a beautiful band of pearls on one finger: was it an engagement-ring? No, that would be a solitaire.

And all this time she called names from the interminable list, and mechanically corrected the mistakes of their owners. Her eyes went back to the girl in the middle row, who turned her head and yawned a little. They took their education very easily, these maidens.

How she had saved and denied herself, and even consented to the indebtedness she so hated, to gain that coveted German winter! And how delightful it had been!

Almost she saw again the dear home of that blessed year: the kindly housemother; the chubby Mädchen who knitted her a silk purse, and cried when she left; the father with his beloved 'cello and his deep, honest voice.

How cunning the little Bertha had been! How pleasant it was to hear her gay little voice when one came down the shady street!”_Da ist sie, ja!_” she would call to her mother, and then Hermann would come up to her with his hands outstretched. Had she had a hard day? Was the lecture good? How brown his beard was, and how deep and faithful his brown eyes were! And he used to sing--why were there no bass voices in the States?”_Kennst du das Land_” he used to sing, and his mother cried softly to herself for pleasure. And once she herself had cried a little.

“No,” she said to the girl who was reciting, “no, it takes the dative. I cannot seem to impress sufficiently on your minds the necessity for learning that list thoroughly. You may translate now.”

And they translated. How they drawled it over, the beautiful, rich German. Hermann had begged so, but she had felt differently then. She had loved her work in anticipation. To marry and settle down--she was not ready. It would be so good to be independent. And now--But it was too late. That was years ago. Hermann must have found some yellow-braided, blue-eyed Dorothea by this--some Mädchen who cared not for calculus and Hebrew, but only to be what her mother had been, wife and house-mother. But this was treason. Our grandmothers had thought that.

She looked at the girl in the middle row. What beautiful hair she had! What an idiot she was to give up four years of her life to this round of work and play and pretence of living! Oh, to go back to Germany--to see Bertha and her mother again, and hear the father's 'cello! Hermann had loved her so! He had said, so quietly and yet so surely: “But thou wilt come back, my heart's own. And always I wait here for thee. Make me not wait long!” He had seemed too quiet then--too slow and too easily content. She had wanted quicker, busier, more individual life. And now her heart said, “O fool!”

Was it too late? Suppose she should go, after all? Suppose she should go, and all should be as it had been, only a little older, a little more quiet and peaceful? The very fancy filled her heart with sudden calm. A love so deep and sure, so broad and sweet--could it not dignify any woman's life? And she had been thought worthy and had refused this love! O fool!

Suppose she went and found--her heart beat too quickly, and her face flushed. She called on the bright girl in the front row.

“And what have you learned?” she said.

The girl coughed importantly. “It is a poem of Goethe's,” she announced in her high, satisfied voice. “_Kennst du das Land_”

“That will do,” said the German assistant. “I fear we shall not have time for it to-day. The hour is up. You may go on with the translation for to-morrow.” And as the class rose with a growing clamor she realized that though she had been thinking steadily in German, she had been talking in English. So that was why they had comprehended so well and answered so readily! And yet she was too glad to be annoyed at the slip. There were other things: her life was not a German class!

As the girls crowded out, one stopped by the desk. She laid her hand with the pearl band on the third finger on the teacher's arm. “You look tired,” she said. “I hope you're not ill?”

“Ill?” said the woman at the desk. “I never felt better. I've been neglecting my classes, I fear, in the study of your green gown. It is so very pretty.”

The girl smiled and colored a little.

“I'm glad you like it,” she said. “I like it, too.” Then, with a sudden feeling of friendship, an odd sense of intimacy, a quick impulse of common femininity, she added:

“I've had some good times in this dress. Wearing it up here makes me remember them very strangely. It's queer, what a difference it makes--” She stopped and looked questioningly at the older woman.

But the German assistant smiled at her. “Yes,” she said, “it is. And when you have been teaching seven years the difference becomes very apparent.” She gathered up her books, still smiling in a reminiscent way. And as she went out of the door, she looked back at the glaring, sunny room as if already it were far behind her, as if already she felt the house-mother's kiss, and heard the 'cello, and saw Klara's tiny daughter standing by the door, throwing kisses, calling, “_Da ist sie, ja!_”

Lost in the dream, her eyes fixed absently, she stumbled against her fellow-assistant, who was making for the room she had just left.

“I beg your pardon--I wasn't looking. Oh, it's you!” she murmured vaguely. Her fellow-assistant had a headache, and forty-five written papers to correct. She had just heard, too, a cutting criticism of her work made by the self-appointed faculty critic; the criticism was cleverly worded, and had just enough truth to fly quickly and hurt her with the head of her department. So she was not in the best of tempers.

“Yes, it's I,” she said crossly. “If you had knocked these papers an inch farther, I should have invited you to correct them. If you go about in that abstracted way much longer, my dear, Miss Selbourne will inform the world (on the very best authority) that you're in love.”

“I? What nonsense!”

It was a ridiculous thing to say, and she flushed angrily at herself. It was only a joke, of course.

The other woman laughed shortly.

“Dear me! I really believe you are!” she exclaimed. “The girls were saying at breakfast that Professor Tredick was ruining himself in violets yesterday--so it was for you!” and she went into the lecture-room.

A chattering crowd of girls closed in behind her. One voice rose above the rest:

“Well, I don't know what you call it, then. He skated with her all the winter, and at the Dickinson party they sat on one sofa for an hour and talked steadily!”

“Oh, nonsense! She skates beautifully, that's all.”

“She sits on a sofa beautifully, too.” A burst of laughter, and the door closed.

The German assistant smiled satirically. It was all of a piece. At least, the younger women were perfectly frank about it: they did not feel themselves forced to employ sarcasm in their references; it was not necessary for them to appear to have definitely chosen this life in preference to any other. Four years was little to lend to such an experiment. But the older women, who sat on those prim little platforms year after year--a sudden curiosity possessed her to know how many of them were really satisfied.

Could it be that they had preferred--actually preferred--But she had, herself, three years ago. She shook her head decidedly. “Not for nine years, not for nine!” she murmured, as she caught through the heavy door a familiar voice raised to emphasize some French phrase.

And yet, somebody must teach them. They could not be born with foreign idioms and historical dates and mathematical formulae in their little heads. She herself deplored the modern tendency that sent a changing drift of young teachers through the colleges, to learn at the expense of the students a soon relinquished profession. But how ridiculous the position of the women who prided themselves on the steadiness and continuity of their service! Surely they must find it an empty success at times. They must regret.

She was passing through the chapel. Two scrubbing-women were straightening the chairs, their backs turned to her.

“From all I hear,” said one, with a chuckle and a sly glance, “we'll be afther gettin' our invitations soon.”

“An' to what?” demanded the other quickly.

“Sure, they say it's a weddin'.”

“Ah, now, hush yer noise, Mary Nolan; 'tis no such thing. I've had enough o' husbands. I know when I'm doin' well, an' that's as I am!”