College teachers -- Fiction; Interpersonal relations -- Fiction; United States -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Fiction
The various members of the procession were not so set upon the
significance of their orderly march that they did not notice the
stranger as he stood watching them. All the professors saw him and
envied him a little his youth and his elegance, and were at the same
time a little amused. Eleanor Bent saw him and flushed, then grew very
white. Here, perhaps, was the stranger who was to call upon her! Her
heart was wax, as yet unwritten upon, but this day plastic and ready for
a lover's signature. She was, at the thought that Utterly might be the
coming messenger of "Willard's Magazine," at once excited and alarmed.
She was so ignorant--what should she say to so imposing and elegant a
person?
Seeing that the body of the chapel was filled, Utterly climbed one of
the two broad staircases which led to the rear gallery, and from there
looked down upon the bonnets of the ladies and upon the flower-decked
platform on which faculty and graduates were now taking their places.
There were two other occupants of the gallery--at the organ a handsome
boy, who was evidently a senior, since his black gown lay on the bench
beside him, and the same tall gentleman redolent of drugs who had
breakfasted at the hotel.
The boy was playing vigorously. His touch was clear and true, and
Utterly, who possessed, along with many other serviceable and
unserviceable bits of knowledge, an acquaintance with organ music,
listened with surprise to his spirited and accurate work. His eyes then
passed from one member of the faculty to another, resting longest upon
President Lister, short, dark-skinned, and Jewish in appearance, and
upon a tall, slender, smooth-shaven man whom he guessed to be the
Professor of English. In these two, he decided, after contemplating them
and their colleagues, was concentrated the intellectual strength of
Walton College.
When the processional was finished, the player slid off the organ bench,
slipped into his gown, straightened his shoulders, whispered a "Hello!"
at the doctor, and left the gallery. A much smaller boy emerged,
red-faced, from the interior of the organ, and to him Utterly signaled a
demand for a programme.
During the long prayer, he read the list of graduates. The first name
upon which his eye fell, that of Eleanor Bent, startled him so that he
almost exclaimed aloud, and for a few moments he continued to stare at
it as though he were not quite certain that he read aright. But the name
was unmistakable, as well as the young woman's part on the
programme--"Eleanor Bent, Valedictory." Utterly slid along the bench
toward the doctor, who was much surprised to find him close by when he
lifted his head after the prayer. There was a strange, excited look in
the doctor's eyes. At the programme which Utterly held out to him he
glared almost savagely. He did not like Utterly's looks; he was an
effeminate dandy.
Utterly had drawn a heavy line under Eleanor Bent's name, and he pointed
to it now with his pencil.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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