Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1917-05-29
CHAPTER l.
BEGINNING an Adventure.

Beginning an Adventure.
Indeed" continued the professor,
glancing down at his notes, eff one
were the editor of a column Of-er-
advice to young girls, one might crys-
taIlize the remarks have been making
this morning into a warning-never
marry a man with a passion for prin'
ciples."
1t got a laugh, of course. Professor
ial jokes always do. But the girl
didn't laugh. She came to with start
she had been staring out the window
and wrote, apparently, the fool thing
down In her notebook. 1t was the
only note she had made in thirty-five
minutes.
All of this brilliant exposition Of
the paradox of Rousseau and Robes
pierre Che was giving course on the
French revolution), the strange and
vet inevitable fact that the sOftest,
most sentimental, rose-scented religion
ever invented, should have produced,
through its most thoroughly infatuated
disciple, the ghastliest reign Of terror
that ever shocked the world his mas
terly character study of the "sea-green
incorruptible," too humane to swat a
France TO the guillotine in order that
the half that was left might believe
unanimously in the rights of man
all this the girl had let go by unheard,
in favor, apparently, of the drone of
a street piano, which came in through
the open window on the wings of a
prematurely warm March wind. OF
all his philosophizing. there was not
pen-track to mar the virginity of the
page she had opened her notebook to
when the lecture began.
And then, with a perfectly serious
face. she had written down his silly
little joke about advice to young girls.
There was no reason in the world
for his paying any special attention to
her; 1t annoyed him frightfully that
he did.
She was good-looking, of course
a rather bOyishly splendid young crea-
ture of somewhere about twenty, with
3 heap Of chestnut hair that had
n sort of electric vitality about it. She
had strong chin, with a slight forward
thrust, good straight-looking, express
sive eyes, and big, wide. really beau
tiful mouth, with square white teeth
On 1t, which, when she smiled, ex-
erted a sort of hypnotic effect on
him. All that, however, left unex-
planned the quality she had of making
you, whatever she did, irrestibly aware
of her. And, conversely. unaware of
everyone else about her.
Her name was Rosalind Stanton, but
his impression was that they called her
Rose.
The bell rang out In the corridor.
He dismissed the class and began
stacking up his notes. Then. Miss
Stanton" he said.
She detached herself from the
stream that was moving toward the
door and, with a gOod-humored look
of inquiry about her very expressive
eyebrows. came toward him.
''This is an idictie question" he
said as she paused before his desk,
"but did you get anything at all out
of my lecture except my bit OF face
tious advice to young girls about to
marry7"
She flushed little "a girl like that
hadn't any right to flush: it ought
TO be against the college regulations),
drew her bows together in a puzzled
sort of way, and then. with her wide,
boyish, good-humored mouth, she smil-
ed. Il didn't know it was facetious,"
she said. ut struck me as pretty good.
But-Tm awfully sorry if you thought
me inattentiye. You see, mother
brought us up on the Social Contract
and the age of Reason" such things,
and 1 didn't put it down because :"
Il see" he said. II beg your par
DON"
She smiled, perfectly cheerfully
begged his pardon. and assured him
she'd try to do better.
Another girl who had been waiting
to speak to the professor, pereeiving
that their conversation was at an end,
came and stood beside her at the desk
"a scrawny girl with an eager voice,
and question she wanted to ask about
Robespierre and for some reason
OF other Rosalind Stanton'S valedic-
tory smile seemed TO include a con-
sciousneSS of this other girl--a con-
seriousness of a contrast. 1t might not
have been any more than that, but
somehow it left the professor feeling
that he had given himself away.
There is nothing cloistral about the
University of Chicago except its
architecture. As she went out Rose
felt that the presence of fat abbot
or lady prioreSS in the corridor
outside the recitation-room would have
fitted in admirably with the look of
the warm gray walls and the carven
pointed arches of the window and
door easements. the blaekened oak OF
the doors themselves.
She wasn't fully conscious of il on
this March morning. but something
had happened that made a difference.
If she'd been ascending an impercep-
tible gradient for the past months.
to-day she had come TO recognizable