April Fools' Day -- Fiction; Humorous stories; Love stories
"This sun makes one almost sleepy," she said calmly, "and I sat up
quite late last night, too--playing picquet with your uncle. He is
a poor sleeper."
"Indeed. I am not acquainted with his habits," Antony responded.
"We will look at the buildings now, I think, if you are
sufficiently rested." A fell purpose had suddenly found itself in
his humiliated breast. This insolent young puss should have cause
indeed for drowsiness.
She sprang instantly to her feet with a quick and pleasing muscular
co-ordination, which, again, was not lost upon Antony. She wore a
white flannel costume dotted with a dull blue--the blue of Canton
china. Of this colour, too, was the silk stocking that flashed down
the steps above her low-cut shoes. A ludicrous and daring colour
for a brunette--until you encountered her eyes.
"I am quite ready," she said demurely, and Antony started briskly
down the street.
"On the right," he began didactically, "you will see Wadsworth
Hall, the building of applied sciences. It was presented by the two
sons of Mr. Ezra Bement Wadsworth in memory of their father, a
prominent graduate. It cost three hundred thousand dollars and is
one of the most completely equipped buildings of its kind in the
country, I believe."
"How interesting!" she murmured.
"Yes," Antony agreed, "it _is_ interesting."
"To what are the sciences applied?" she inquired placidly.
"To--er, to--really, I have never gone into it so far as that,"
Antony returned, biting his lip, "I am not interested in science
myself. But that is what it is generally called: it is on a bronze
tablet on the corner. It is probably only an expression."
"Ah, yes, probably," she assented.
"Beyond it and a shade to the left you will see," he continued,
with a wave of his stick, "Mansfield Hall. It is a dormitory,
occupied by sophomores."
"And who presented that?" his companion inquired, gazing
respectfully at the end of his stick.
"I do not know," he informed her briefly.
"Oh, you do not know," she repeated in her low voice. Something in
the falling inflection caused her guide to wriggle uneasily.
"Nobody knows," he added, rashly. "I should think nobody would want
to, it is so hideous."
"To be sure," she said. "And sophomores live there. Are you perhaps
a sophomore, Mr. Tony?"
"I?" Antony exclaimed; then in level tones, "I am a senior."
"Really!" she murmured. "I suppose that means that you are one of
the older pupils, then? In the first class?"
"It does," he assented grimly, adding as a cutting afterthought, "a
sophomore, I suppose, would be beneath your notice?"
She smiled sweetly. "Oh, dear me, no!" she assurred him, "not in
the least--it is all the same to me, you see, Mr. Tony!"
Antony should have realised by this time the folly of any further
tilting, but he did not.
"Your interest naturally turns, then, to men of my uncle's age?" he
inquired caustically.
She considered this with a pretty seriousness.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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