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Updated: May 3, 2025
He is taken for granted, and besides, Miss MacLauren is becoming sensitive because there was no one but William. The next day she was approached by Hattie and Rosalie, who each had a note. They mentioned it casually, but Hattie's tone had a ring. Was it satisfaction? And Rosalie's laugh was touched with gratification, for the notes were official, inviting them, too, to become Platonians.
The Platonians raced toward their various goals of high-school teaching, or law, or marriage, or permanently escaping their parents; they made love, and were lazy, and ate, and swore off bad habits, and had religious emotions, all quite naturally; they were not much bored, rarely exhilarated, always ready to gossip about their acquaintances; precisely like a duke or a delicatessen-keeper.
Miss MacLauren felt disconcerted, the bubble of her elation seemed pricked, until she began to think about it. Hattie and Rosalie were not asked to become Platonians; did they make light of the honour because it was not their honour? Each seeks to be victor in some Field of Achievement, but each is jealous of the other's Field.
Platonians gave up dinner and Friday afternoons to the cause, but what Platonian doubted it being worth it? Miss MacLauren and Hattie walked home together. At the corner they met a boy. It was the other boy whose name, as it chanced, was Chester. He joined them and they walked along together. Something made Miss MacLauren's cheek quite red; it was her blush when the boy joined them.
Lucy had gone on to her father's store, as Uncle Charlie had suggested she ask permission before she seek business farther. There were others of Uncle Charlie's way of thinking. On Monday the Platonians were requested to meet Professor Koenig in his office. Professor Koenig was kindly but final. He had just heard of the paper and its methods. He had aimed to conduct his school on different lines.
That meeting was the last of the Platonian gatherings that might be called personally conducted. The Platonians hardly knew whether they wanted a paper or not, when they found themselves full in the business of making one. Miss Kilrain was the head and front of things. She marshalled her forces with the air of one who knows what she wants.
"There, Mr. Ericson," said Mrs. Henkel, a plump, decent, disapproving person, who had known too many generations of great Platonians to be impressed by anything, "you see what the public thinks of your Professor Frazer. I told you people wouldn't stomach such news, and I wouldn't wonder if they strongly disapproved."
One man, who pressed clothes for a living and carried a large line of cigarettes in his room, was second vice-president of the sophomore class. As smoking was dourly forbidden to all Platonians, the sophomore's room was a refuge. The sophomore encouraged Carl in his natural talent for cheerful noises, while Plain Smith objected even to singing while one dressed.
She had learned that they were Platonians, and from the out-courts of the un-elect she had watched them, in pairs and groups, mount the stairs with laughter and chatter and covert backward glances. She did not wonder, she would have glanced backward, too, for wherein lies the satisfaction of being elect, but in a knowledge of the envy of those less privileged?
It was from the Literary Society of the Boy's High School, proposing a debate between the two; it was signed by the secretary, who chanced to be a boy whose name was Chester. Miss MacLauren, in spite of herself, grew red; she had been talking about the Platonians and their debates with him quite recently. The effect of the note upon the Platonians was visible.
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