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Gladys Todd talked of the three Miss Minnicks again as she plied her brush, and Mrs. Todd of Mr. Minnick and Mrs. Minnick as she worked her needles. They crushed the struggling hope I had for one moment more in which to make a last appeal. Boller did not come. The college clock struck four and still there was no sign of him.
He was glad to know any friend of Boller's, but evidently Boller was laboring under a misapprehension as to his importance. He disavowed having any influence. Had he the power, nothing would delight him more than to give a friend of Boller a job.
There was some other man, I thought perhaps Boller of '89 and remembering him, his picturesque garb and ridiculous pose, my own vanity was deeply cut. Until late that night I sat smoking violently and turning over in my mind the problem and all its dreadful possibilities.
In his words, in the quiet smile with which he was regarding her, I read his secret hope that when he went abroad she would be with him as Mrs. Boller. Restless, uncomfortable, and angry as I was, I had been at the point of leaving, but this disclosure changed my purpose. I realized that I was in no mere skirmish and I dared not give an inch of ground. I stayed. Boller talked on.
"I don't want to be a big fish in a small pond." "And you think that journalism offers a chance of becoming a whale in a big pond. It does, Malcolm, it does," said Boller. "Journalism is the greatest power in the country to-day. We used to call you the Reverend David. Well, if you still have any lingering desire to be a preacher, the paper is the place for you, not the pulpit.
I met Boller in the hall afterward, and as he took my arm condescendingly and walked with me a little way I summoned up courage to invite him to my room and there to open my heart to him. He lighted one of his own cigars after having declined that which I offered him, and this little evidence of his superior taste served to confirm my opinion of his importance.
To be sure my clothes were not the best form, but it was not to be expected that a man new to university life should be here Boller surveyed himself in the glass and I understood the implication. So I polished my shoes, wetted and soaped my own hair to rival his and went with him. Had he been leading me into battle I could not have been colder with fright.
I compared Boller with Doctor Todd, with Mr. Pound, and in the younger generation with Simmons of his own class, who had become principal of a high-school, and I said to myself that the profession which in two years had made him this confident, masterful man offered the opportunity that I sought. "If you have red blood, Malcolm " Boller went on as he polished his glasses.
So Gladys Todd had her part in completing the wreck of my worthy ambition. What Boller had begun, she unconsciously finished. Yesterday I had planned to make self-sacrifice the key-note of my life. To-day I could not picture her contented to move in the narrow sphere of a Mrs. Pound, cramping her talents in the little circle of the Sunday-school and the Ladies' Aid.
"I'm going to be a minister," I said, drawing myself up a little. "Indeed a minister how interesting!" returned Boller, raising his eyebrows. Now had he laughed at me, had he called his fellows from the step to mob me, in the glory of my martyrdom I should have held fast to my purpose; or had he flattered me like Miss Spinner or Mr. Smiley, my vanity would have carried me on my chosen path.
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