“I often wonder if all women can understand it,--the other things, not just the beauty,--or if it’s only women with sons and brothers who come here.” “Especially sons,” smiled Philip, taking her hand and swinging it to and fro, as they strolled back again toward Holworthy. “But I never shall find out for sure,” went on Mrs. Haydock; “because even the ones who do feel the place, just as if they had been here themselves, can’t express it.” “It’s so dreadful to try,” said Philip. Then after a moment, “I was thinking of all the horrible Class Poems and Odes and Baccalaureate Sermons and ghastly Memorial Day orators that are allowed to go on.” “Oh, they probably don’t do any harm,” Mrs. Haydock interceded mildly. “No, not positive harm,” her son admitted; “but neither would a lot of hurdygurdies in Appleton Chapel.” Once in a while Haydock was somewhat extreme. Just now his mother took occasion to remark on that fact. “No, really, I don’t think I am,” Philip protested. “What can they add to our feeling for Harvard with their trite mouthings about _veritas_ and Memorial Hall? Other places may need that sort of thing; this one doesn’t. Most of us here recognise that fact, and conduct ourselves accordingly. And outsiders misunderstand the attitude; Eleanor, for example.” Eleanor was a cousin with Yale affinities. “I had to snub Eleanor once for saying, before a lot of people, that whenever she wanted to flatter a Harvard man, she told him he was blasé, and, if that didn’t work, she called him a cynic, and if even that wouldn’t bring him round, she hinted that he didn’t believe in God.” “Eleanor is a very clever, silly little girl,” laughed Mrs. Haydock. “Eleanor is excessively cheap at times,” corrected Philip. “We’re not ‘cynical,’ and we’re not ‘blasé,’ and whether or not we believe in God is nobody’s business. If we don’t drool about the things here we care for very much, it’s because people who do are indecent; they bore us.” “They do bore one,” assented Mrs. Haydock. “Once in a while some one does tear out his heart and drip it around the stage in Sanders Theatre for the benefit of all the tiresome old women in Cambridge, and the Glee Club drones Latin hymns to a shiny upright piano hired for the occasion, while the orator calms himself with ice-water from the bedroom pitcher that is always prominent on those occasions. But such performances, thank God, are rare.” “Why do you go to them?” asked Mrs. Haydock. “I don’t,” said Philip. “That was when I was a freshman, and didn’t know any better. Since then I have acquired ‘Harvard indifference,’” he added, smiling to himself. They left the Yard, lingering a moment for another look down the leafy vista, and walked slowly across to Memorial.