The Prince George's enquirer and southern Maryland advertiser. (Upper Marlborough, Md.) 1882-1925, 1917-04-13
CHAPTER |.
Beginning an Adventure.


Indeed" continued the professor,
glancing down ut his notes, "if one
were the editor of column of-er-
advice to young girls, one might crys-
tallize the remarks I have been making
this morning into a warning-never
marry a man with passion for prin-
ciples."
1t got 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-fiye
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 ea-green
incorruptible," too humane to swat Il
fly. yet capable of sending half of
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
IL 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 a
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; it annoyed him frightfully that
he did.
She was good-looking, of course
a rather boyishly splendid young crea-
ture of somewhere about twenty, with
a heap of chestnut hair that had
a sort Of electric vitality about it. She
had strong chin, with q slight forward
thrust good raight-looking, express
sive eyes, and q big, wide, really beau
tiful mouth. with square white teeth
in 1t, which, when she smiled, eX-
erted sort of hypnotic effect on
him. All that, however, left une1-
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 q good-humored look
of inquiry about her very expressive
eyebrows, came toward him.
"This is an idiotfc 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
marry?"
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-
cd. 81 didn't know it was facetiouS,"
she said. ''It struck me as pretty good.
But-Tm awfully sorry if you thought
me inattentive. 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. Il beg your par
dom
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, perceiving
that their conversation was at an end,
came and stood beside her at the desk
"a scrawny girl with an eager voice,
and a question she wanted to ask about
Robespierre; and for some reason
or other Rosalind Stanton's valedic-
tory smile seemed to include q con-
sciOuSnesS of this other girl-a con-
sciousness of Il contrast. 1t might not
have been any more than that, but
somehow it left the professor feeling
that be had given himself aWGy.