The Headmaster's Dilemma by Louis Auchincloss Read Free Book Online Page A

break with Madame de Vionnet and take himself home to Mummy and the family business. He knows he can't prevent this; he simply wants to express as forcefully as he can to Chad how much the young man owes to the wonderful woman who has taught him all the beautiful things that his drab hometown hasn't. Strether knows how his own vision of Paris has made a garden of the desert of his life, and he hopes that Chad will at least take some of that vision home with him."
    Everyone in the room listened respectfully—after all, she
was
their hostess—but she could tell that her interpretation failed to impress. Strether had told Chad that he would be a villain if he deserted his Parisian mistress, had he not? How could any of them get around that? Wasn't Averhill
their
Woollett? How could they ever admit a vision of Paris that threatened their satisfaction with what they were?
    That night was "parlor night," when some forty students (different dormitories were invited on different nights) invaded the big hall and two living rooms of the headmaster's house to play games or join sing-alongs or even to dance to taped music. Ione and a couple of faculty wives acted as hostesses, but that evening she pleaded a slight headache and sat in an isolated corner with a pale, skinny, and awkward fourteen-year-old lad who worked on a large and difficult jigsaw puzzle spread out on a card table. He had worked on it on a previous parlor night, and Ione had seen to it that the card table, with folded legs, had been placed on a shelf in a closet so that the unfinished puzzle was preserved. The boy, Berty Dean, was an obvious Ioner who had presumably found it difficult to adjust himself to boarding-school life.
    "Do you mind my helping you with it?" she asked him, smiling. "Together we might be able to finish it tonight."
    "Oh, I don't mind at all, Mrs. Sayre. It was very kind of you to preserve it for me."
    "You like jigsaw puzzles?"
    "I like this one."
    "Why this one, particularly?"
    The boy's large dark eyes seemed to betray a struggle with caution. Was this lovely lady really on his side? Could she be trusted? "Because it takes me away from here. When I fit a piece into the picture I'm doing something that has nothing to do with school."
    "It takes you home perhaps. Are you homesick, Berty? It's very natural. I sometimes am myself."
    "But this is your home, isn't it?"
    "I sometimes wonder."
    He gave her a tiny smile. Evidently, she
could
be trusted. "Not liking where you are doesn't have to mean you're homesick."
    "I suppose it could even mean you're schoolsick."
    But she shouldn't be getting into this, and they both turned their attention to the puzzle. A sing-along had started in the hall, and the noise distracted her.
The sons of the prophet
were hardy and bold,
And quite unaccustomed to fear,
But the bravest of all,
at least so I am told,
Was...
    "I really do have a headache now," she murmured, half to herself, and rising and apologizing to one of the presiding faculty wives, she went upstairs to her room to lie down.
    The image of the unhappy and ungainly boy struggling to escape the jeers and pokes of his nasty contemporaries by fitting together pieces of pasteboard to create a landscape that had no merit other than its not being Averhill haunted her with its suggestion of a parallel to her own case. But of course he had no Michael to love him, and when the latter came suddenly into the room she sat up and threw her arms about him.
    "My poor darling," he exclaimed. "I heard you had to leave those awful games. Are you all right?"
    "Oh, I'm fine," she assured him. "Just a bit tired, that's all. Get me a drink, will you. I want to talk to you."
    When he came back with their drinks, she was already out of bed, seated in a chair and ready for a serious discussion.
    "Ever since my fiasco as a teacher," she began, "I've been doing a good bit of thinking, not only of my role in our lives, but of yours."
    "So have I," he concurred. "My role seems