The Plastic Age Percy Marks (read full novel txt) 📖

They continued walking in silence for a few minutes, and then Norry said: “I’m awfully happy here at college, and I didn’t expect to be, either. I knew that I was kinda different from other fellows, not so strong; and I don’t like ugly things or smutty stories or anything like that. I think women are lovely, and I hate to hear fellows tell dirty stories about them. I’m no fool, Hugh; I know about the things that happen, but I don’t want to hear about them. Things that are dirty and ugly make me feel sick.”

“Well, I was afraid the fellows would razz me. But they don’t. They don’t at all. The fellows over at the Delta Sig house are wonderful to me. They don’t think I’m wet. They don’t razz me for not going on wild parties, though I know that some of the fellows are pretty gay themselves. They ask me to fiddle for them nearly every evening, and they sit and listen very, very quietly just as long as I’ll play. I’m glad you told me to go Delta Sig.”

Norry made Hugh feel very old and a little crude and hard. He realized that there was something rare, almost exquisite, about the boy, and that he lived largely in a beautiful world of his own imagination. It would have surprised Norry if anyone had told him that his fraternity brothers stood in awe of him, that they thought he was a genius. Some of them were built out of pretty common clay, but they felt the almost unearthly purity of the boy they had made a brother; and the hardest of them, the crudest, silently elected himself the guardian of that purity.

Hugh found real happiness in Norry Parker’s companionship, and such men as Burbank and Winsor were giving him a more robust but no less pleasant friendship. They were earnest youths, eager and alive, curious about the world, reading, discussing all sorts of topics vigorously, and yet far more of the earth earthy than Parker, who was so mystical and dreamy that constant association with him would have been something of a strain.

For a time life seemed to settle down into a pleasant groove of studies that took not too much time, movies, concerts, an occasional play by the Dramatic Society, perhaps a slumming party to a dance in Hastings Saturday nights, bull sessions, long talks with Henley in his office or at his home, running on the track, and some reading.

For a week or two life was lifted out of the groove by a professor’s daughter. Burbank introduced Hugh to her, and at first he was attracted by her calm dignity. He called three times and then gave her up in despair. Her dignity hid an utterly blank mind. She was as uninteresting as her father, and he had the reputation, well deserved, of being the dullest lecturer on the campus.

Only one event disturbed the pleasant calm of Hugh’s life after his argument with Tucker. He did not attend Prom because he knew no girl whom he cared to ask; he failed again to make his letter and took his failure philosophically; and he received a note from Janet Harton telling him that she was engaged to “the most wonderful man in the world”⁠—and he didn’t give a hoot if she was.

Just after Easter vacation the Nu Deltas gave their annual house dance. Hugh looked forward to it with considerable pleasure. True, he was not “dragging a woman,” but several of the brothers were going “stag”; so he felt completely at ease.

The freshmen were put to work cleaning the house, the curtains were sent to the laundry, bedroom closets and dresser drawers were emptied of anything the girls might find too interesting, and an enormously expensive orchestra was imported from New York. Finally a number of young alumni, the four patronesses, and the girls appeared.

Getting dressed for the dance was a real event in Hugh’s life. He had worn evening clothes only a few times before, but those occasions, fraternity banquets and glee club concerts, were, he felt, relatively unimportant. The dance, however, was different, and he felt that he must look his best, his very “smoothest.” He was a rare undergraduate; he owned everything necessary to wear to an evening function⁠—at least, everything an undergraduate considered necessary. He did not own a dress-suit, and he would have had no use for it if he had; only tuxedos were worn.

He dressed with great care, tying and retying his tie until it was knotted perfectly. When at last he drew on his jacket, he looked himself over in the mirror with considerable satisfaction. He knew that he was dressed right.

It hardly entered his mind that he was an exceedingly good-looking young man. Vanity was not one of his faults. But he had good reason to be pleased with the image he was examining for any sartorial defects. He had brushed his sandy brown hair until it shone; his shave had left his slender cheeks almost as smooth as a girl’s; his blue eyes were very bright and clear; and the black suit emphasized his blond cleanness: it was a wholesome-looking, attractive youth who finally pulled on his topcoat and started happily across the campus for the Nu Delta house.

The dance was just starting when he arrived. The patronesses were in the library, a small room off the living-room. Hugh learned later that six men had been delegated to keep the patronesses in the library and adequately entertained. The men worked in shifts, and although the dance lasted until three the next morning, not a patroness got a chance to wander unchaperoned around the house.

The living-room of the Nu Delta house was so large that it was unnecessary to use the dining-room for a dance. Therefore, most of the big chairs and divans had been moved into the dining-room⁠—and the dining-room was dark.

Hugh