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_ After the vacation Claude again settled down to his reading in
the University Library. He worked at a table next the alcove
where the books on painting and sculpture were kept. The art
students, all of whom were girls, read and whispered together in
this enclosure, and he could enjoy their company without having
to talk to them. They were lively and friendly; they often asked
him to lift heavy books and portfolios from the shelves, and
greeted him gaily when he met them in the street or on the
campus, and talked to him with the easy cordiality usual between
boys and girls in a co-educational school. One of these girls,
Miss Peachy Millmore, was different from the others,--different
from any girl Claude had ever known. She came from Georgia, and
was spending the winter with her aunt on B street.
Although she was short and plump, Miss Millmore moved with what
might be called a "carriage," and she had altogether more manner
and more reserve than the Western girls. Her hair was yellow and
curly,--the short ringlets about her ears were just the colour of
a new chicken. Her vivid blue eyes were a trifle too prominent,
and a generous blush of colour mantled her cheeks. It seemed to
pulsate there,-one had a desire to touch her cheeks to see if
they were hot. The Erlich brothers and their friends called her
"the Georgia peach." She was considered very pretty, and the
University boys had rushed her when she first came to town. Since
then her vogue had somewhat declined.
Miss Millmore often lingered about the campus to walk down town
with Claude. However he tried to adapt his long stride to her
tripping gait, she was sure to get out of breath. She was always
dropping her gloves or her sketchbook or her purse, and he liked
to pick them up for her, and to pull on her rubbers, which kept
slipping off at the heel. She was very kind to single him out and
be so gracious to him, he thought. She even coaxed him to pose in
his track clothes for the life class on Saturday morning, telling
him that he had "a magnificent physique," a compliment which
covered him with confusion. But he posed, of course.
Claude looked forward to seeing Peachy Millmore, missed her if
she were not in the alcove, found it quite natural that she
should explain her absences to him,--tell him how often she
washed her hair and how long it was when she uncoiled it.
One Friday in February Julius Erlich overtook Claude on the
campus and proposed that they should try the skating tomorrow.
"Yes, I'm going out," Claude replied. "I've promised to teach
Miss Millmore to skate. Won't you come along and help me?"
Julius laughed indulgently. "Oh, no! Some other time. I don't
want to break in on that."
"Nonsense! You could teach her better than I"
"Oh, I haven't the courage!"
"What do you mean?"
"You know what I mean."
"No, I don't. Why do you always laugh about that girl, anyhow?"
Julius made a little grimace. "She wrote some awfully slushy
letters to Phil Bowen, and he read them aloud at the frat house
one night." "Didn't you slap him?" Claude demanded, turning red.
"Well, I would have thought I would," said Julius smiling, "but I
didn't. They were too silly to make a fuss about. I've been wary
of the Georgia peach ever since. If you touched that sort of
peach ever so lightly, it might remain in your hand."
"I don't think so," replied Claude haughtily. "She's only
kind-hearted."
"Perhaps you're right. But I'm terribly afraid of girls who are
too kindhearted," Julius confessed. He had wanted to drop Claude
a word of warning for some time.
Claude kept his engagement with Miss Millmore. He took her out to
the skating pond several times, indeed, though in the beginning
he told her he feared her ankles were too weak. Their last
excursion was made by moonlight, and after that evening Claude
avoided Miss Millmore when he could do so without being rude. She
was attractive to him no more. It was her way to subdue by
clinging contact. One could scarcely call it design; it was a
degree less subtle than that. She had already thus subdued a pale
cousin in Atlanta, and it was on this account that she had been
sent North. She had, Claude angrily admitted, no reserve,--though
when one first met her she seemed to have so much. Her eager
susceptibility presented not the slightest temptation to him. He
was a boy with strong impulses, and he detested the idea of
trifling with them. The talk of the disreputable men his father
kept about the place at home, instead of corrupting him, had
given him a sharp disgust for sensuality. He had an almost
Hippolytean pride in candour. _
Read next: Book One: On Lovely Creek: Chapter 10
Read previous: Book One: On Lovely Creek: Chapter 8
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