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THE MAROON TIGER
Page 11
fugitives
(A Very Brief Episode)
By Raphael.
Deserting an uninteresting husband who loves you
very much to dash away with a handsome young cava
lier is breathlessly exciting, but a trifle wearing on the
conscience, thought Rosalinde as she hastily thrust deli
cate things into an overnight bag. She paused at her task.
“This is wrong—but what’s a woman to do? I’ve tried
—.” She said this in an unusually queer key, the tone
a woman uses when she makes an attempt to justify one
of her many faults. If Colin heard her, he gave no evi
dence of it. He was lighting his fourth consecutive cig
arette.
“The steamer leaves in half an hour,” he said very
evenly, his slim impatient fingers drumming softly on the
gold cigarette case.
Rosalinde said nothing.
A silence prevailed; one of those silences which is
very deathly when one is running away with some one’s
wife.
“Do we catch it, or don’t we?”
“Of course—You know I want to get away from this.
The trunks are gone; I’m ready, but—”
“You still love him.” Colin’s measured words reeked
of bitterness.
“No!—no. I loathe him; loathe him, not for what he’s
done, but for what he hasn’t. He is too genteel, too wor
shipping. He haunts my shadow like a domesticated
beast. That’s it. He loves me too much; that’s why I
hate him. A woman detests that, Colin.”
But Colin wasn’t concerned with her reasons for leav
ing. He pierced her through with cold eyes.
“Why the uncertainty, then?”
“There is none.—Yet, one hates to scourge a faith
ful dog.” Colin never had a dog.
“We have twenty-six minutes.” And his fingers re
turned to their drumming again; fingers that loved the
touch of cards and money and beautiful women.
Rosalinde was scribbling on a blue sheet of paper
her final letter to her husband. She held it up to her
companion.
“Peter,” it read, “forgive me for doing this to you. I
am going aw r ay with Colin. You have been splendid—
much too splendid—to an ungrateful woman who want
ed to stay interested. The fault was that too much you
loved
Rosalinde.”
Colin nodded, mildly grunted his satisfaction, and
deftly lit another cigarette. Rosalinde placed the letter
on the table under a brass ash-tray. Peter would sure
ly see it when he returned from Camden the next day.
A month later two very happy people sprawled upon
the warm sands at a small resort near Cannes. It was
one of those brilliant days that France affords. The
woman was the slender thing strong men love; the
man a bronze god reclining.
“Happy?” he asked, turning his face toward the wom
an who answered with lips that deliciously tasted of
salt water.
Since moments of bliss are usually short-lived, it
wasn’t surprising to the pair to be interrupted by the
old fellow from the hotel.
McIver. ’34
“Pout Madame,” he said, bowing very low like a
prince. Rosalinde took the letter he offered and waved
him away. The envelope revealed evidence of having fol
lowed Rosalinde for some time; it bore several scratched-
out addresses.
“Peter.” Quietly. “But I’m not going back, Colin.”
“Tear it up, and let’s burn our bridges this time.” A
command was never spoken so softly, nor obeyed so
immediately.
Rosalinde did what few of her curious sex would have
done; she tore the letter, unopened, to small bits, and,
walking down the sands, strewed it on a greedy wave
that licked it up. Then she returned to Colin, and they
laughed merrily in the sun as happy people do.
Now, if some mermaid had been interested in jig
saw puzzles and gathered and put together those pieces
of torn paper, she would have read—if she could read
English—these words:
“Rosalinde, never forgive me for what I am doing; I
don’t deserve that much of your sympathy. I have too
long lied to you, pretending I still loved you. The flame
died long ago, and my ‘trip to Camden’ was merely an
easy way out, and a chance to rekindle the fire—with
someone else. You did everything a wife could, but I
simply lost interest. That’s all. Perhaps you were too
good to
Peter.”
GREEN TURNS MAROON
In the latter part of September, fifty-two typically
green and ambitious Freshmen strutted up on Morehouse’s
campus. Some came with tennis racquets, saxaphones, and
banjos—as if coming to a playground instead of an insti
tution of learning. One bright fellow, who had been
directed beforehand to catch the “West Fair” car and
get off at the end of the line, followed directions to
the letter by getting off and gently knocking on the
door of the “gym.” He left in disgust. Nobody was in.
He has since learned the difference between the“gym”
and the Administration Building.
Freshmen are represented in all extra-curricular activi
ties on the campus. The freshmen class can pride itself on
having five men on the football squad, three on the basket
ball team, and six on the track team. Numerous fresh
men are connected with the Glee Club and Orchestra,
one with the Debating Team and five with the “M”
Club. Freshmen also form the nucleus of Le Cercle de
Francois and Die Deutsche Slunde ‘Einigkeit.’
Eight members are on the “dean’s list” and twenty-
one were eligible to pledge fraternities. The “yearlings”
have been well represented in intramural sports. They
were successful in copping the track meet and had rep
resentative teams in all other sports.
Let us welcome freshmen to our fold next Septem
ber, for, after all, it’s around the freshmen that the
future Morehouse will be built. It’s the freshmen that
must carry the Maroon banners—even at the expense
of dyeing their former green ones.
Theodore Menchan, ’36.