aughing. She evidently was
not hearing a word her father said, being lost in the contemplation
of the perfect evening costume of the newest assistant in Professor
Marshall's department. He was a young man from Massachusetts, fresh
from Harvard, who had come West to begin his teaching that year. His
was certainly the most modern dress-suit in the University faculty;
and he wore it with a supercilious disregard for its perfections which
greatly impressed Sylvia.

After these usual formalities were thus safely past, some one
suggested a game of charades to end the evening. Amid great laughter
and joking from the few professors present and delighted response
from the students who found it immensely entertaining to be on such
familiar terms with their instructors, two leaders began to "choose
sides." The young assistant from Harvard said in a low tone to his
friend, not noticing Professor Marshall's young daughter near them:
"They won't really go on and _do_ this fool, undignified, backwoods
stunt, will they? They don't expect us to join _in_!"

"Oh yes, they will," answered his friend, catching up his tone of
sophisticated scorn. He too was from Harvard, from an earlier class.
"You'll be lucky if they don't have a spelling-down match, later on."

"Good Lord!" groaned the first young man.

"Oh, you mustn't think all of the University society is like _this_!"
protested the second. "And anyhow, we can slope now, without being
noticed,"

Sylvia understood the accent and tone of this passage more than the
exact words, but it summed up and brought home to her in a cruelly
clarified form her own groping impressions. The moment was a terribly
painful one for her. Her heart swelled, the tears came to her eyes,
she clenched her fists. Her fine, lovely, and sensitive face darkened
to a tragic intensity of resolve. She might have been the young
Hannibal, vowing to avenge Carthage. What she was saying to herself
passionately was, "When _I_ get into the University, I will _not_ be a
jay!"

It was under these conditions that Sylvia passed from childhood,
and emerged into the pains and delights and responsibilities of
self-consciousness.

BOOK II

_A FALSE START TO ATHENS_

CHAPTER X

SYLVIA'S FIRST GLIMPSE OF MODERN CIVILIZATION

Although there was not the slightest actual connection between
the two, the trip to Chicago was always in Sylvia's mind like the
beginning of her University course. It is true that t