“. . . I’ve got to see you for a minute . . . everything was such a mess . . . before I leave for Greece . . . explain why I was so absurd . . .”
—And as he stood there, blind and fumbling, the expression faded from Kiki’s eyes and hurt and humiliation surged back over her. When he did look at her she was as steely and formidable as her voice.
“This is Mr. Van Kamp . . . I’m sorry but I can’t see you now—There’s nothing I want to discuss, Alex. You’ll have to excuse me.”
Incredulously he looked at Van Kamp, realizing his presence for the first time. Then, perceiving too late that this was not a matter for words, but rather a struggle against what had been said, he went toward her—and just as quickly she retreated, as if revolted by his proximity. Even Rip bristled slightly and Alex stopped, his half raised arms falling to his side.
“I’ll write you,” he whispered. “This is such an awful mistake.”
“It might have been,” she said. “Please go away.”
He was gone—and for a minute, in the awful reverberating thunder of his absence, she looked toward the door thinking that he had come back, that he couldn’t stop loving her, that she might have forgotten everything in his arms. A great shiver went over her—then she turned to Rip and answered a question he had just asked.
“Yes, that was the man.”
“He looks awful sorry.”
“Let’s not talk about him. I don’t know him any more. Come here, Rip.”
“Here?”
“Don’t put your arms around me. Just sit where I can look at you.” She was like a stifling person come to a window for air. Thinking with grim pleasure how intensely Alex would have disapproved, she said:
“Rip, in Hollywood there are dozens of people your age without half your good looks, making fortunes.”
“You think I ought to go in the movies?”
“No, you ought to stay in college. But you ought to get a great deal of money for this thing you can do better than anyone else—and save it up for the time when other people can do things better than you.”
“You think I’ll end up as a night watchman or something?” He frowned. “I’m not so stupid—I’ve thought of that. It’s kind of sad, isn’t it?”
“It’s kind of sad, Rip.”
“But of course you can’t be sure of anything. There must be a place in the world for people like me.”
“There is, I’m sure of that—but you ought to start now to build it. I’m going to help you. Don’t worry—I won’t fall in love with you.”
“Oh, you won’t?”
“Certainly not—I’ve been thrown over once and I haven’t faintly recovered—if I ever do.” She moved away from him gently. “Please stop. Don’t you understand that was last night, it wasn’t even me—you don’t even know me, Rip, and maybe you never will.”
III
That winter there were many men for Kiki, but her heart was empty and she paid them off in deflated currency. As if asleep she walked through a February inspection of the colleges, but at New Haven she opened her eyes long enough to search for Rip Van Kamp through the swirling crowd, and not finding him sent him a message to his room. Next day they strolled through a light blinding snow, and his face, statuesque against the winter sky, brought a sudden renewal of delight.
“Where were you last night?” she demanded.
“I haven’t got a white tie and tails.”
“How ridiculous!” she exclaimed impatiently. “But I’ve got my plans for you—gross material ones. I think I’ve found you an angel. Wait till you hear.”
Sitting in his study before a wood fire she told him.
“It’s a man named Gittings, class of 1903, a friend of the family. Well, last month he was staying with us and one day I found him writing something very mysterious that he tucked away when I came in. I had to find out what it was and I did. It was a list of names—Ketcham, Kelley, Kilpatrick, and so forth—and he finally confessed it was a football team made up of old Yale players whose names began with K. He told me that whenever he had a little time to kill he chose a letter of the alphabet and picked a team. I knew right away that we had our man.”
“But even if he got down to the letter V,” said Rip, “I can’t see how—”
“Don’t be dumb—football’s his passion, don’t you see? He’s a little crazy on the subject.”
“He must be.”
“—And he ought to be willing to pay for his fun—I mean pay you.”
“I certainly appreciate your interest.”
“You don’t—you think I’m pretty fresh, but you don’t know all yet: I’ve started the ball rolling. I’ve planted the seed in his mind. I told him you’d been offered a lot of money to go to college out West—”
He jumped to his feet.
“Be calm, Rip. Though I must say Mr. Gittings wasn’t. He stormed around yelling that it was criminal. Finally he asked who the offer was from—but I thought I’d better stop there. Are you angry?”
“Why no—but would you mind telling me why you’re doing all this?”
“I don’t know, Rip—maybe it’s a sort of revenge.”
They walked over the old campus through the early twilight and she stopped where a bracket lamp made a yellow square on the blue snow.
“You’ve got to use intelligent self-interest.” She said, as if to herself, “For one thing it’ll help you get the girl you want, when you decide you want a girl.”
“I’ve never known a girl like you,” he said, “After I left you last fall I couldn’t stop thinking about you, even when you told me it didn’t mean a thing.”
“Did I say that?”
She looked very lovely and he told her about her cheeks.
“So pretty. Very white.”
“So are yours.”
They took a step together out of the light and their faces touched in the frosty darkness.
“Somebody’s waiting for me at the Taft, Rip,” she said. “Come to our house in New York next Saturday afternoon. Mr. Gittings will be there.”
IV
In spite of his alphabetical football teams, Mr. Cedric Gittings was not soft-minded. He was one of the many Americans whose mother had liked Little Lord Fauntleroy and the sportive ideas that obsessed him at fifty were a simple and natural reaction. Every autumn the eleven young men who ran out on the football field of a crisp Saturday represented something very lovely to him that he had not found in life.
He was glad to meet Rip—honored and impressed.
“That was a beautiful game,” he said. “It seems I grabbed the feathers from a lady’s hat and threw them into the air. I think I went after the feathers because when you made that touchdown I felt light as a bird. When we lose it makes me physically sick. Tell me, young man, what’s this about your leaving college?”
Kiki spoke up:
“Rip doesn’t want to leave—it would almost break his heart—but he hasn’t any money. And anyhow, Yale won’t have much of a team next year.”
“Why, of course they will,” exclaimed Mr. Gittings.
Kiki looked hard at Rip who said obediently,
“There’s not much in the line.”
“There’s you, man—you’re a line in yourself. I can see you coming out and leading that interference—”
“But if the team doesn’t win,” Kiki interrupted, “the professionals won’t be after Rip. I think he ought to accept the offer of this western college.”
“What college?” demanded Gittings fiercely.
Rip looked at Kiki and managed to say:
“I’m not at liberty to tell.”
“This buying up players is an outrage. I’d rather see us lose every game than think the team was bought and paid for.”
“Rip’s got to think of the future,” said Kiki mildly. “You hear of so many players getting to be night watchmen or bouncers and even landing in jail.”
“In jail! I’ve never heard of any good football players going to jail. Wh
y, you’re remembered forever. If I was a judge and some football star came up before me I’d say ‘this must be a mistake’—any man with such beautiful muscular coordination ought to have the benefit of the doubt.”
“If I ever sink that low,” Rip said, “I hope the judge will agree with you.”
“Of course he will. Judges are human just like anyone else.”
Kiki felt that the conversation was becoming somewhat gloomy.
“Rip only wants to go where alumni are more liberal so he can earn a living.”
“What do they offer you out West?” asked Mr. Gittings.
“An awful lot,” Kiki said promptly.
“Well, you’d be a fool to accept, young man.”
“I’d hate to leave college,” said Rip. “Still, anything’s better than jail.”
Gittings groaned.
“There you go on jail again. I’ll keep you out of jail. I’ll leave a fund in case you go wrong.”
“Now that’s sensible,” applauded Kiki. “A fund is something he could depend on.”
“I’ll get him a chance with some good firm as soon as he’s out of college.”
“The fund idea seems better to me.”
“It seems to me you’re pretty mercenary about this, young lady.” He sighed. “When would he have to go?”
“Right away, I suppose. He has to enter now in order to be eligible next fall. They’re very particular.”
“Particular!” cried Mr. Gittings disgustedly. “Particular! Just tell me this: How much do they offer?”
At the moment it was a great disadvantage to him that he had never before bribed an athlete. He had no idea what they were paid, and the whole matter seemed so lawless and obnoxious that the question of how much was of relatively little importance. Kiki finally closed the deal at five thousand dollars.
V
And now Kiki went away for six months and things happened to her of which there is no room to tell here. There are idealists who would take it amiss that she suffered with the moonlight in Honolulu and on the Italian Lakes and almost married a man who does not even come into this story. He had a certain break in his voice or he dressed with humor—and then he did something or failed to do something and after that had no more connection with the dawn, wind or the evening stars. Late in October she called it off and hurried back to America.
Arriving Kiki looked around tentatively, what she expected to find she didn’t know—certainly not Considine who was on an archaeological expedition in Crete. But there was a lost feeling and she was glad to find a wire from Rip Van Kamp. He wanted to see her urgently and suggested she come up to the Dartmouth game. She went feeling that she was going to find something she had left there—the first youth and illusion lost in the Bowl a year ago.
If any college player was ever worth five thousand Rip was worth it that season. It was a poor team, light backs behind a raw line, and this brought Rip’s play into high relief. He had a style of his own which no coach had ever tried to change—it was like nothing so much as a legal form of holding and many an official laid for him in vain. His charge was quick and rather high with knees and hips in it and elbows loose, so that he seemed at the crucial moment to be wrapped around the defensive man, yet with such a small area of actual contact that he was free even as the play passed. And when a man outweighed thirty to sixty pounds gave such an exhibition Saturday after Saturday even Mr. Gittings could ask no more.
Tingling with expectation, Kiki met him after the game.
“When I watch you play I’m just the adoring high school girl,” she said.
“I wish you were.”
“So do I. At least I could lead the cheers. At present I can’t be any help at all. I wish you had some real problems.”
“I have,” he said, frowning. “I’m in a terrible mess. That’s why I wired you.”
“Why, Rip—what’s the matter?”
They were at the Sachem Tea House with many men and girls oddly quiet after the game. First glancing around, Rip took out a newspaper clipping and handed it to her.
“Read it and I’ll explain,” he said. “It isn’t about me.”
CAMPUS JEWEL THIEF RETURNS LOOT
YALE DEAN GETS ANONYMOUS PACKAGE
Frightened by an aroused campus swarming with Philo Vances and Hercule Poirots, the thief who has been operating in the Yale dormitories yesterday sent about three hundred dollars worth of his booty to Dean Marsh through the mail. It was in the form of watches, pins, wallets and miscellaneous jewelry. From the thief’s knowledge of the students’ lecture hours, etc. he is believed to be an undergraduate.
“So what?” asked Kiki.
“I told you about my brother Harry being a sophomore. He had some hard luck—broke his knee in freshman football and he can’t play any more. So he turned thief. I can’t understand it. A man in his class spotted him and came to me and I took every cent I had to buy the stuff back. Now I need more.”
“Out of the five thousand? Oh, Rip—I thought I was to take care of that and you weren’t to touch it till after college.”
“I can’t help it. Harry’s my brother. He’s not going to jail.”
“But you’ve sent the things back.”
“I haven’t told you everything. The man who knows about it is a low skunk, and he has to be squared.”
They seemed to have descended suddenly into another world. Kiki had thought of Rip as detached from any past, the masterpiece of an anonymous sculptor. Now the shadow of the brother fell across his shoulders.
“Wouldn’t it settle it if your brother leaves college? He oughtn’t to be here anyhow if he’s—” She balked at the word.
“It wouldn’t satisfy this man. Of course I could break his neck—”
“You can’t get mixed up in it, Rip.” She sighed with distress. “How much does he want?”
“He mentioned a thousand dollars.”
“Oh Rip! I almost wish you’d broken his neck.”
“I will if you think it’s best.”
“No—we’ll have to pay him. But you’ve got to send your brother away before he gets into more trouble.”
“If he leaves college it’ll look funny.” He frowned. “I can’t stand to send him away. I never told you but he and I were brought up in an orphanage and I’ve always looked out for him.”
Now she knew all about him—she had never liked him better than at this moment.
“But sooner or later he’ll get you in a worse jam just when you’ve got this start and I’ve made plans to get more money for you—Rip, you’ve got to send him away.”
“Anyhow, you see I’ve got problems,” he said.
“We’ll deal with them,” she said brightening.
After supper, walking along the shady darkness of Hillhouse Avenue she turned to him suddenly:
“Rip, I’m so very fond of you.”
“Fond of me? What does that mean? The people in the Bowl are fond of me.”
She heard herself lying to him.
“I’ve thought about you all summer—so much.”
He put his arm around her and drew her close. The moon was up rosy gold with a haze around it and bells were pounding through the Indian summer darkness. Thus she had stood with the love of her girlhood, with Alex Considine, a year ago, with another man on a starry deck last summer. She was happy and confused—when you were not in love one attractive man seemed much the same as another. Yet she felt very close to Rip—what he had said about his brother reminded her of all that was missing in his life and for a moment she felt that she could supply it—it would not be hard to fall in love with him. She was plagued with her bright unused beauty.
“You couldn’t love me,” he said suddenly. “It’ll be somebody with a head on his shoulders.”
But she was full of new thoughts about him when they said goodbye in the station and she took her seat in the parlor car. As the train started, the seat in front of her swung about and she faced Alex Considine.
Her
first reaction was that he was not the man she had seen ten months before, but rather the very stranger whom she once met—the stranger with kind keen eyes and a face alive with the appreciation and understanding that had first attracted her. Then she remembered and gave him a smile that began charmingly so as to be all the more chilling when it suddenly stopped.
“You look fine, Kiki,” he said quietly.
“Did you expect me to be withered away?”
“I’ve thought about you a great deal this summer.”
It was what she had said to Rip—she supposed it was equally exaggerated.
“I was going to phone you tomorrow,” he said, “Then I saw you after the game.”
“There’s a vacant seat up the car,” she suggested. “Would you mind moving up there?”
“I’d rather not. The expedition is going back to Crete in December and I think it would be fine if you’d come along—just to prevent any talk we could get married.”
“Perhaps I’d better move,” she said. “This seat is over the wheels.”
“You wouldn’t want me to apologize,” he said. “That would be merely revolting.”
“Just why did you throw me over?” she asked. “I don’t give a darn about you now but I’d like to know.”
“I wanted a little time alone out in the world. Some day I’ll explain, but now all I can think of is that I’ve lost ten months of you.”
Her heart made an odd reminiscent tour of her chest.
“Did you like the game?” she asked. “For a Harvard man you show great interest in Yale.”
“I was doing a little scouting. I played football as a sophomore.”
“I didn’t know you then.”
“You didn’t miss anything. I wasn’t any Van Kamp.”
She laughed.
“I think it was from you I first heard the name. You told me Yale bought him.”
“They did—but I’m not sure it’ll do them much good.”
Instantly alert she demanded, “What do you mean?”
“I shouldn’t have said that. We don’t know anything for certain yet.”
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