It was quarter after two in the afternoon, and the Professor was sitting at his desk, engaged in arranging the notes of his lecture, when there came a knock on the door.
“Come in,” said the Professor. “Ah, Ned! is it you?” This to a graceful boy of twenty, who entered the room.
“Yes, it is Ned,” said the boy; “and he particularly wishes to see you for a few minutes.”
“Every moment is precious,” said the Professor, “until my lecture is in order. What is the matter? Are you in trouble?”
“Yes,” said Ned, “I am in trouble.”
“Then let me read to you,” said the Professor, “the concluding paragraph of my lecture on Domestic Arts.”
“Oh, don’t!” said Ned; “I really am in trouble.”
“Are you the insulter or the insulted, this time?” asked the Professor.
“Neither,” said Ned, shortly; “and I’m not in trouble on my own account.”
“Ah!” said the Professor; “then you have got into some difficulty in your explorations in low life; or you have spent more than your income; or it’s the perpetual Tom.”
“It’s the perpetual Tom,” said Ned.
“I supposed so,” observed the Professor. “What has that youth been doing now? Drinking, swearing, gambling, bad company, theft, murder?—out with it! I am prepared for anything, from the expression of your face; for anything, that is to say, except my lecture on Domestic Arts, which comes at three.”
“Well, if you choose to make fun of me,” said Ned, “I can go; but I thought you would advise me.”
“And so I will, you ridiculous creature, when you need it,” said the Professor; “only at such times you generally act for yourself. But, come; my advice and sympathy are yours; so what has Tom done?”
“He has fallen in love,” said Ned.
“Oh, no!” said the Professor.
“Yes, sir,” repeated Ned, more firmly, “he has fallen in love.”
“ ’Tis the way of all flesh,” said the Professor; “but I don’t think Tom can fall in love. He never even dislikes any one without a cause.”
“That’s all very well, sir,” said Ned; “but when a fellow has a girl’s picture, and looks at it when he thinks he isn’t watched; and when he receives notes, and keeps them, instead of throwing them around, as usual; and when he takes to being blue—what do you say?”
“Please state your propositions separately,” said the Professor, “and I will endeavor to form an opinion. When a fellow has a girl’s picture—what was the rest?”
“I wish you wouldn’t make fun of me,” said Ned.
“Well, in Heaven’s name, what is there to trouble you, if Tom is in love?” asked the Professor.
“Because he hasn’t told me,” said Ned.
“Oh! you are jealous then,” rejoined the Professor. “You are the most selfish person, for one who is so generous, that I have ever seen. You are morbid upon the subject of Tom, I believe.”
“Well, look here,” said Ned; “I have neither father nor mother; I have no one except Tom. I care more for him than for any one else in the world, as you know; but you never will know how much I care for him; and it does seem hard that he should shut me out of his confidence when I have done nothing to forfeit it. There’s some girl at the bottom of all this. He and that big Western friend of his, the Blush Rose, whom I never liked, have been off together two or three times; and, as I say, Tom has got this picture; and the Blush Rose knows it, and knows who she is. I’ve seen them looking at it, and admiring it. I’m afraid, from Tom’s not telling me about it, that he’s doing something out of the way.”
“In that case,” said the Professor, “you had better let me read you the closing paragraph of my lecture on Domestic Arts.”
“No, I thank you,” said Ned; “I shall have to hear it, any way, this afternoon.”
“So you will,” said the Professor; “and, by the way, I shall give you a private if you behave to-day as you did in my last lecture. I have told your class-tutor to warn you.”
“Well, that is pleasant,” said Ned.
“I meant it to be,” replied the Professor. “Good-by. I may call at your room to-night—to see Tom.”
And, as Ned was heard going down the stairs, the Professor, seeing that he had still twenty-five minutes to spare, took his lecture, and sat down before the fire, which flickered slightly, and just served to destroy the dampness of that April day.
Whether the Professor would have made any alterations or amendments in his lecture, it is difficult to say; that he did not is due to the fact that his eye fell upon a little photograph, which hung over his fireplace. As he sits there, thinking over what Ned has told him, and laughing at the idea of Tom’s being really in love, he gazes on this little photograph, and smiles. The Professor has one or two real art treasures, but nothing that he values quite as much as this fading picture. This is the only copy in existence; and this hangs there, and will hang there until the Professor dies. How well he remembers the morning when the two boys, whom he loves so well, rushed into his room, and left it there! As he looks at it now, there is an expression of tenderness on his plain but strongly cut features that would greatly astonish those of his pupils who only know him as a crusty instructor.
The Professor is somewhat crusty, it must be owned. It is, however, an acquired and not a natural crustiness. Cause, the fact that at thirty years of age he discovered that he cared more for a certain Miss Spencer than for all the world beside. On intimating this fact to her, she told him that she should always value his friendship; and that she hoped soon to introduce to him her cousin Hugh, “who is,” she added quietly, “to become my husband.” After this the Professor withdrew almost entirely from society, and plunged deeper and deeper into study. Before many years his reputation was cosmopolitan, his head bald, and his life a matter of routine. Boys came and went; and at intervals he repeated before them much of what he knew. It is to these two boys, of whom he thinks now, as he gazes on the picture over the mantel, that he owes his rescue from this lethargic life.
What does he see in the picture? He sees behind a chair, in which a boy is sitting, another boy with soft, curling brown hair, deep blue eyes, and dazzling complexion. His features are delicately cut; but the especial beauty of his face is the brilliancy of color in his hair, eyes, and complexion. There is the freshness of youth on his features; and his whole attitude, as he leans over his companion, is full of that quaint grace of boyish tenderness so indefinable and so transitory. The boy in the chair has a face full of strength and weakness. The photograph makes him appear the more striking of the two, though the less handsome. The sunny sweetness of the first face, though it never alters, never becomes wearisome; but the second face is now all love, now disfigured by scorn and hatred, now full of intellect, and glowing with animation, now sullen and morose. The complexion is olive, the eyes brown, the lips strongly cut, yet so mobile as to be capable of every variety of earnest and sneering expression. The face is always, in all its varying phases, the face of one who is not dissatisfied but unsatisfied. This is what the Professor sees, as the firelight throws its glimmer over the room, making grotesque shadows waver fitfully on the pictures and books around him, as well as on the heavy curtains that hide the rays of afternoon light which struggle through the leafy boughs of the old elms in the yard without.
As the Professor sits there thinking, he seems to recall again the first visit of Tom and Ned to his room. Tom is a lovely boy—the original of the standing figure in the photograph; and the Professor had been attracted by his face once or twice when he had met him in the yard, soon after his entrance into college. Still he is surprised, one evening, when he hears a knock at his door, and this Freshman enters half shyly. The Professor asks him to be seated, and then looks at him inquiringly.
“I was awfully homesick,” says Tom, with perfect trustfulness; “and mother told me that you were once a very dear friend of hers; so I thought I would come up and see you.” The Professor is bewildered. Still he is a gentleman; so he smiles, and says to Tom:—
“Pray be seated. Your mother is well, I trust.”
“Oh, yes!” says Tom. “Perhaps, as she hasn’t seen you since before I was born, I ought to have said who she was. Her name was Spencer.”
The Professor turns quickly. Tom proceeds with entire unconsciousness:—