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

Hugh’s fears immediately departed. “I should have myself,” he replied. “It was awfully good of you to invite me.”

After meeting Norry’s father and mother, Hugh understood the boy better. Mrs. Parker was both charming and pretty, a delightful woman who played the piano with professional skill. Mr. Parker was an artist, a portrait-painter, and he got prices for his pictures that staggered Hugh when Norry mentioned them casually. He was a quiet, grave man with gray eyes like his son’s.

When he had a minute alone with Hugh, he said to him with simple sincerity: “You have been very kind to Norry, and we are grateful. He is a strange, poetic lad who needs the kind of understanding friendship you have given him. We should have been deeply disappointed if you hadn’t been able to visit us.”

The expressions of gratitude embarrassed Hugh, but they made him feel sure of his welcome; and once he was sure of that he began to enjoy himself as he never had before. Before the month was out, he had made many visits to New York and was able to talk about both the Ritz and Macdougal Alley with elaborate casualness when he returned to college. He and Norry went swimming nearly every day and spent hours sailing on the Sound.

Norry introduced him to the many girls who had summer homes near the Parker cottage. They were a new type to him, boarding-school products, sure of themselves, “finished” with a high polish that glittered effectively, daringly frank both in their speech and their actions, beautiful dancers, good swimmers, full of “dirt,” as they called gossip, and as offhand with men as they were with each other. Within a week Hugh got over his prejudice against women’s smoking. Nearly every woman he met, including Mrs. Parker, smoked, and every girl carried her cigarette-case.

Most of the girls treated Norry as if he were a very nice small boy, but they adopted a different attitude toward Hugh. They flirted with him, perfected his “petting” technique, occasionally treated him to a drink, and made no pretense of hiding his attraction for them.

At first Hugh was startled and a little repelled, but he soon grew to like the frankness, the petting, and the liquor; and he was having a much too exciting time to pause often for criticism of himself or anybody else. It was during the last week of his visit that he fell in love.

He and Norry were standing near the float watching a number of swimmers. Suddenly Hugh was attracted by a girl he had never seen before. She wore a red one-piece bathing-suit that revealed every curve of her slender, boyish figure. She noticed Norry and threw up her arm in greeting.

“Who is she?” Hugh demanded eagerly.

“Cynthia Day. She’s just back from visiting friends in Maine. She’s an awfully good swimmer. Watch her.” The girl poised for an instant on the edge of the float and then dived gracefully into the water, striking out with a powerful overhand stroke for another float a quarter of a mile out in the Sound. The boys watched her red cap as she rounded the float and started back, swimming easily and expertly. When she reached the beach, she ran out of the water, rubbed her hands over her face, and then strolled over to Norry.

Her hair was concealed by a red bathing-cap, but Hugh guessed that it was brown; at any rate, her eyes were brown and very large. She had an impudent little nose and full red lips.

“ ’Lo, Norry,” she said, holding out her hand. “How’s the infant?”

“Oh, I’m fine. This is my friend Hugh Carver.”

“I’ve heard about you,” she said as they shook hands. “I only got back last night, but everybody seems to be digging dirt about Norry’s friend. Three of my friends are enemies on account of you, and one of ’em says she’s going in swimming some day and forget to come back if you don’t give her a little more time.”

Hugh blushed, but he had learned a few things in the past weeks.

“I wish they would tell me about it,” he said with a fair assumption of ease. “Why didn’t you come back sooner?” He was pleased with that speech. He wouldn’t have dared it a month before.

The brown eyes smiled at him. “Because I didn’t know you were here. You haven’t got a cigarette about you, have you? Norry’s useless when it comes to smokes.”

Hugh did have a package of cigarettes. She took one, put it in her mouth, and waited for Hugh to light it for her. When he did, she gazed curiously over the flame at him. She puffed the cigarette for a moment and then said, “You look like a good egg. Let’s talk.” She threw herself down on the sand, and the boys sat down beside her.

From that moment Hugh was lost. For the remaining days of the visit he spent every possible moment with Cynthia, fascinated by her chatter, thrilled by the touch of her hand. She made no objection when he offered shyly to kiss her; she quietly put her arms around his neck and turned her face up to his⁠—and her kisses set him aflame.

For once, he did not want to return to college, and when he arrived in Haydensville he felt none of his usual enthusiasm. The initiation of the freshmen amused him only slightly, and the football games did not seem so important as they had the two previous years. A letter from Cynthia was the most important thing in the world, and she wrote good letters, chatty, gay, and affectionate.

Custom made it necessary for him to room in the fraternity house. It was an unwritten law of Nu Delta that all members live in the house their last two years, and Hugh hardly dared to contest the law. There were four men in the chapter whom he thoroughly liked and with whom he would have been