The Precipice | Page 3

her
world in the face and give it a fair chance to stare back.
Then she heard Lena give a throaty little squeak.
"Oh, my!" she said.
Something apparently was very wrong this time, and Kate was not to
remain in ignorance of what it was. The bench on which she was now

sitting had its custodian in the person of a tall youth, who lifted his hat
and smiled upon her with commingled amusement and commiseration.
"Pardon," he said, "but--"
Kate already was on her feet and the little gusts of laughter that came
from the onlookers hit her like so many stones.
"Isn't this seat for freshmen either?" she broke in, trying not to let her
lips quiver and determined to show them all that she was, at any rate,
no coward.
The student, still holding his hat, smiled languidly as he shook his
head.
"I'm new, you see," she urged, begging him with her smile to be on her
side,--"dreadfully new! Must I wait three years before I sit here?"
"I'm afraid you'll not want to do it even then," he said pleasantly. "You
understand this bench--the C bench we call it--is for men; any man
above a freshman."
Kate gathered the hardihood to ask:--
"But why is it for men, please?"
"I don't know why. We men took it, I suppose." He wasn't inclined to
apologize apparently; he seemed to think that if the men wanted it they
had a right to it.
"This bench was given to the men, perhaps?" she persisted, not
knowing how to move away.
"No," admitted the young man; "I don't believe it was. It was presented
to the University by a senior class."
"A class of men?"
"Naturally not. A graduating class is composed of men and women. C

bench," he explained, "is the center of activities. It's where the drum is
beaten to call a mass meeting, and the boys gather here when they've
anything to talk over. There's no law against women sitting here, you
know. Only they never do. It isn't--oh, I hardly know how to put it--it
isn't just the thing--"
"Can't you break away, McCrea?" some one called.
The youth threw a withering glance in the direction of the speaker.
"I can conduct my own affairs," he said coldly.
But Kate had at last found a way to bring the interview to an end.
"I said I was new," she concluded, flinging a barbed shaft. "I thought it
was share and share alike here--that no difference was made between
men and women. You see--I didn't understand."
The C bench came to be a sort of symbol to her from then on. It was the
seat of privilege if not of honor, and the women were not to sit on it.
Not that she fretted about it. There was no time for that. She settled in
Foster Hall, which was devoted to the women, and where she expected
to make many friends. But she had been rather unfortunate in that. The
women were not as coöperative as she had expected them to be. At
table, for example, the conversation dragged heavily. She had expected
to find it liberal, spirited, even gay, but the girls had a way of holding
back. Kate had to confess that she didn't think men would be like that.
They would--most of them--have understood that the chief reason a
man went to a university was to learn to get along with his fellow men
and to hold his own in the world. The girls labored under the idea that
one went to a university for the exclusive purpose of making high
marks in their studies. They put in stolid hours of study and were
quietly glad at their high averages; but it actually seemed as if many of
them used college as a sort of shelter rather than an opportunity for the
exercise of personality.
However, there were plenty of the other sort--gallant, excursive spirits,

and as soon as Kate became acquainted she had pleasure in picking and
choosing. She nibbled at this person and that like a cautious and
discriminating mouse, venturing on a full taste if she liked the flavor,
scampering if she didn't.
Of course she had her furores. Now it was for settlement work, now for
dramatics, now for dancing. Subconsciously she was always looking
about for some one who "needed" her, but there were few such.
Patronage would have been resented hotly, and Kate learned by a series
of discountenancing experiences that friendship would not come--any
more than love--at beck and call.
Love!
That gave her pause. Love had not come her way. Of course there was
Ray McCrea. But he was only a possibility. She wondered if she would
turn to him in trouble. Of that she was not