Sanford's virtues were hard for Hugh to find, and they grew more inconspicuous as the term advanced. For the time being nothing seemed worth while: he was disgusted with himself, the undergraduates, and the fraternity; he felt that the college had bilked him. Often he thought of the talk he had had with his father before he left for college. Sometimes that talk seemed funny, entirely idiotic, but sometimes it infuriated him. What right had his father to send him off to college with such fool ideas in his head? Nu Delta, the perfect brotherhood! Bull! How did his father get that way, anyhow? Hugh had yet to learn that nearly every chapter changes character at least once a decade and that Nu Delta thirty years earlier had been an entirely different organization from what it was at present. At times he felt that his father had deliberately deceived him, but in quieter moments he knew better; then he realized that his father was a dreamer and an innocent, a delicately minded man who had never really known anything about Sanford College or the world either. Hugh often felt older and wiser than his father; and in many ways he was.
In March he angered his fraternity brothers again by refusing a part in the annual musical comedy, which was staged by the Dramatic Society during Prom week. Hugh's tenor singing voice and rather small features made him an excellent possibility for a woman's part. But he was not a good actor, and he knew it. His attempts at acting in a high-school play had resulted in a flat failure, and he had no intention of publicly making a fool of himself again. Besides, he did not like the idea of appearing on the stage as a girl; the mere idea was offensive to him. Therefore, when the Society offered him a part he declined it.
Bob Tucker took him severely to task. "What do you mean, Hugh," he demanded, "by turning down the Dramat? Here you've got a chance for a lead, and you turn up your nose at it as if you were God Almighty. It seems to me that you are getting gosh-awful high-hat lately. You run around with a bunch of thoroughly wet ones; you never come to fraternity meetings if you can help it; you aren't half training down at the track; and now you give the Dramat the air just as if an activity or two wasn't anything in your young life."
"The Dramat isn't anything to me," Hugh replied, trying to keep his temper. Tucker's arrogance always made him angry. "I can't act worth a damn. Never could. I tried once in a play at home and made a poor fish of myself, and you can bet your bottom dollar that I'm not going to again."
"Bunk!" Tucker ejaculated contemptuously. "Hooey! Anybody can act good enough for the Dramat. I tell you right now that you're turning the fraternity down; you're playing us dirt. What have you done in college? Not a goddamn thing except make the Glee Club. I don't care about track. I suppose you did your best last year, though I know damn well that you aren't doing it this year. What would become of the fraternity if all of us parked ourselves on our tails and gave the activities the air the way you do? You're throwing us down, and we don't like it."
"Well, I'm not going out for the Dramat," Hugh mumbled sullenly; "you can just bet on that. I'll admit that I haven't trained the way I ought to, but I have made the Glee Club, and I have promised to join the Banjo Club, and I am still on the track squad, and that's more than half the fellows in this fraternity can say. Most of 'em don't do anything but go on parties and raise hell generally. How come you're picking on me? Why don't you ride some of them for a while? I don't see where they're so hot."
"Never mind the other fellows." Tucker's black eyes flashed angrily. He was one of the "hell-raisers" himself, good looking; always beautifully dressed, and proud of the fact that he was "rated the smoothest man on the campus." His "smoothness" had made him prominent in activities—that and his estimate of himself. He took it for granted that he would be prominent, and the students accepted him at his own valuation; and powerful Nu Delta had been behind him, always able to swing Votes when votes were needed.
"Never mind the other fellows," he repeated. "They're none of your party. You've got talents, and you're not making use of them. You could be as popular as the devil if you wanted to, but you go chasing around with kikes and micks."
Hugh was very angry and a little absurd in his youthful pomposity. "I suppose you refer to Parker and Einstein—my one mick friend, although he isn't Irish, and my, one Jewish friend. Well, I shall stick to them and see just as much of them as I like. I've told you that before, and you might as well get me straight right now: I'm going to run with whoever I want. The fraternity cannot dictate to me about my friends. You told me you didn't want Parker and Einstein around the house. I don't bring them around. I don't see as how you've got a right to ask anything more."
"I don't suppose you realize that everything you do reflects on the fraternity," Tucker retorted, slightly pompous himself.
"I suppose it does, but I can't see that I have done anything that is going to ruin the name of Nu Delta. I don't get potted regularly or chase around with filthy bags or flunk my courses or crib my way through; and I could mention some men in this house who do all those things." Hugh was thoroughly angry and no longer in possession of his best judgment. "If you don't like the way I act, you can have my pin any time you say." He stood up, his blue eyes almost black with rage, his cheeks flushed, his mouth a thin white line.
Tucker realized that he had gone too far. "Oh, don't get sore, Hugh," he said soothingly. "I didn't mean it the way you are taking it. Of course, we don't want you to turn in your pin. We all like you. We just want you to come around more and be one of the fellows, more of a regular guy. We feel that you can bring a lot of honor to the fraternity if you want to, and we've been kinda sore because you've been giving activities the go-by."
"How about my studies?" Hugh retorted. "I suppose you want me to give them the air. Well, I did the first term, and I made a record that I was ashamed of. I promised my folks that I'd do better; and I'm going to. I give an hour or two a day to track and several hours a week to the Glee Club, and now I'm going to have to give several more to the Banjo Club. That's all I can give at present, and that's all I'm going to give. I know perfectly well that some fellows can go out for a bunch of activities and make Phi Bete, too; but they're sharks and I'm not. Don't worry, either; I won't disgrace the fraternity by making Phi Bete," he concluded sarcastically.
"Oh, calm down, Hugh, and forget what I said," Tucker pleaded, thoroughly sorry that he had started the argument. "You go ahead and do what you think right and we'll stand by you." He stood up and put his hand on Hugh's shoulder. "No hard feelings, are there, old man?"
Kindness always melted Hugh; no matter how angry he was, he could not resist it. "No," he said softly; "no hard feelings. I'm sorry I lost my temper."
Tucker patted his shoulder. "Oh, that's all right. I guess I kinda lost mine, too. You'll be around to the meeting to-morrow night, won't you? Better come. Paying fines don't get you anywhere."
"Sure, I'll come."
He went but took no part in the discussion, nor did he frequent the fraternity house any more than he had previously. More and more he realized that he had "gone with the wrong crowd," and more and more he thought of what Graham had said to him in his freshman year about how a man was in hell if he joined the wrong fraternity. "I was the wise bird," he told himself caustically; "I was the guy who knew all about it. Graham saw what would happen, and I didn't have sense enough to take his advice. Hell, I never even thought about what he told me. I knew that I would be in heaven if Nu Delta gave me a bid. Heaven! Well, I'm glad that they were too high-hat for Norry Parker and that he went with the right bunch."
Norville Parker was Hugh's Catholic friend, and the more he saw of the freshman the better he liked him. Parker had received several bids from fraternities, and he followed the advice Hugh had given him. "If Delta Sigma Delta bids you, go there," Hugh had said positively. "They're the bunch you belong with. Apparently the Kappa Zetes are going to bid you, too. You go Delta Sig if you get the chance." Hugh envied Parker the really beautiful fraternity life he was leading. "Why in God's name," he demanded of himself regularly, "didn't I have sense enough to take Graham's advice?"
When spring came, the two boys took long walks into the country, both of them loving the new beauty of the spring and happy in perfect companionship. Hugh missed Carl badly, and he wanted to ask Parker to room with him the remainder of the term. He felt, however, that the fraternity would object, and he wanted no further trouble with Nu Delta. As a matter of fact, the fraternity would have said nothing, but Hugh had become hypersensitive and expected his "brothers" to find fault with his every move. He had no intention of deserting Parker, but he could not help feeling that rooming with him would be a gratuitous insult to the fraternity.
Parker—every one called him Norry—was a slender, delicate lad with dreamy gray eyes and silky brown hair that, unless he brushed it back severely, fell in soft curls on his extraordinarily white forehead. Except for a slightly aquiline nose and a firm jaw, he was almost effeminate in appearance, his mouth was so sensitive, his hands so white and slender, his manner so gentle. He had a slow, winning smile, a quiet, low voice. He was a dreamer and a mystic, a youth who could see fairies dancing in the shadows; and he told Hugh what he saw.
"I see things," he said to Hugh one moonlight night as they strolled through the woods; "I see things, lovely little creatures flitting around among the trees: I mean I see them when I'm alone. I like to lie on my back in the meadows and look at the clouds and imagine myself sitting on a big fellow and sailing and sailing away to heaven. It's wonderful. I feel that way when I play my fiddle." He played the violin beautifully and had promptly been made soloist for the Musical Clubs. "I—I can't explain. Sometimes when I finish playing, I find my eyes full of tears. I feel as if I had been to some wonderful place, and I don't want to come back."
"I guess I'm not like other fellows. I cry over poetry, not because it makes me sad. It's not that. It's just so beautiful. Why, when I first read Shelley's 'Cloud' I was almost sick I was so happy. I could hardly stand it. And when I hear beautiful music I cry, too. Why, when I listen to Kreisler, I sometimes want to beg him to stop; it hurts and makes me so happy that—that I just can't stand it," he finished lamely.
"I know," Hugh said. "I know how it is. I feel that way sometimes, too, but not as much as you, I guess. I don't cry. I never really cry, but I want to once in a while. I—I write poetry sometimes," he confessed awkwardly, "but I guess it's not very good. Jimmie Henley says it isn't so bad for a sophomore, but I'm afraid that he's just stringing me along, trying to encourage me, you know. But there are times when I've said a little bit right, just a little bit, but I've known that it was right—and then I feel the way you do."
"I've written lots of poetry," Norry said simply, "but it's no good; it's never any good." He paused between two big trees and pointed upward. "Look, look up there. See those black branches and that patch of sky between them and those stars. I want to picture that—and I can't; and I want to picture the trees the way they look now so fluffy with tiny new leaves, but I miss it a million miles.... But I can get it in music," he added more brightly. "Grieg says it. Music is the most wonderful thing in the world. I wish I could be a great violinist. I can't, though. I'm not a genius, and I'm not strong enough. I can't practice very long."
They continued walking in silence for a few minutes, and then Norry said: "I'm awfully happy here at college, and I didn't expect to be, either. I knew that I was kinda different from other fellows, not so strong; and I don't like ugly things or smutty stories or anything like that. I think women are lovely, and I hate to hear fellows tell dirty stories about them. I'm no fool, Hugh; I know about the things that happen, but I don't want to hear about them. Things that are dirty and ugly make me feel sick."
"Well, I was afraid the fellows would razz me. But they don't. They don't at all. The fellows over at the Delta Sig house are wonderful to me. They don't think I'm wet. They don't razz me for not going on wild parties, though I know that some of the fellows are pretty gay themselves. They ask me to fiddle for them nearly every evening, and they sit and listen very, very quietly just as long as I'll play. I'm glad you told me to go Delta Sig."
Norry made Hugh feel very old and a little crude and hard. He realized that there was something rare, almost exquisite, about the boy, and that he lived largely in a beautiful world of his own imagination. It would have surprised Norry if any one had told him that his fraternity brothers stood in awe of him, that they thought he was a genius. Some of them were built out of pretty common clay, but they felt the almost unearthly purity of the boy they had made a brother; and the hardest of them, the crudest, silently elected himself the guardian of that purity.
Hugh found real happiness in Norry Parker's companionship, and such men as Burbank and Winsor were giving him a more robust but no less pleasant friendship. They were earnest youths, eager and alive, curious about the world, reading, discussing all sorts of topics vigorously, and yet far more of the earth earthy than Parker, who was so mystical and dreamy that constant association with him would have been something of a strain.
For a time life seemed to settle down into a pleasant groove of studies that took not too much time, movies, concerts, an occasional play by the Dramatic Society, perhaps a slumming party to a dance in Hastings Saturday nights, bull sessions, long talks with Henley in his office or at his home, running on the track, and some reading.
For a week or two life was lifted out of the groove by a professor's daughter. Burbank introduced Hugh to her, and at first he was attracted by her calm dignity. He called three times and then gave her up in despair. Her dignity hid an utterly blank mind. She was as uninteresting as her father, and he had the reputation, well deserved, of being the dullest lecturer on the campus.
Only one event disturbed the pleasant calm of Hugh's life after his argument with Tucker. He did not attend Prom because he knew no girl whom he cared to ask; he failed again to make his letter and took his failure philosophically; and he received a note from Janet Harton telling him that she was engaged to "the most wonderful man in the world"—and he didn't give a hoot if she was.
Just after Easter vacation the Nu Deltas gave their annual house dance. Hugh looked forward to it with considerable pleasure. True, he was not "dragging a woman," but several of the brothers were going "stag"; so he felt completely at ease.
The freshmen were put to work cleaning the house, the curtains were sent to the laundry, bedroom closets and dresser drawers were emptied of anything the girls might find too interesting, and an enormously expensive orchestra was imported from New York. Finally a number of young alumni, the four patronesses, and the girls appeared.
Getting dressed for the dance was a real event in Hugh's life. He had worn evening clothes only a few times before, but those occasions, fraternity banquets and glee club concerts, were, he felt, relatively unimportant. The dance, however, was different, and he felt that he must look his best, his very "smoothest." He was a rare undergraduate; he owned everything necessary to wear to an evening function—at least, everything an undergraduate considered necessary. He did not own a dress-suit, and he would have had no use for it if he had; only Tuxedos were worn.
He dressed with great care, tying and retying his tie until it was knotted perfectly. When at last he drew on his jacket, he looked himself over in the mirror with considerable satisfaction. He knew that he was dressed right.
It hardly entered his mind that he was an exceedingly good-looking young man. Vanity was not one of his faults. But he had good reason to be pleased with the image he was examining for any sartorial defects. He had brushed his sandy brown hair until it shone; his shave had left his slender cheeks almost as smooth as a girl's; his blue eyes were very bright and clear; and the black suit emphasized his blond cleanness: it was a wholesome-looking, attractive youth who finally pulled on his top-coat and started happily across the campus for the Nu Delta house.
The dance was just starting when he arrived. The patronesses were in the library, a small room off the living-room. Hugh learned later that six men had been delegated to keep the patronesses in the library and adequately entertained. The men worked in shifts, and although the dance lasted until three the next morning, not a patroness got a chance to wander unchaperoned around the house.
The living-room of the Nu Delta house was so large that it was unnecessary to use the dining-room for a dance. Therefore, most of the big chairs and divans had been moved into the dining-room—and the dining-room was dark.
Hugh permitted himself to be presented to the patronesses, mumbled a few polite words, and then joined the stag line, waiting for a chance to cut in. Presently a couple moved slowly by, so slowly that they did not seem to move at all. The girl was Hester Sheville, and Hugh had been introduced to her in the afternoon. Despite rather uneven features and red hair, she was almost pretty; and in her green evening gown, which was cut daringly low, she was flashing and attractive.
Hugh stepped forward and tapped her partner on the shoulder. The brother released her with a grimace at Hugh, and Hester, without a word, put her right hand in Hugh's left and slipped her left arm around his neck. They danced in silence for a time, bodies pressed close together, swaying in place, hardly advancing. Presently, however, Hester drew her head back and spoke.
"Hot stuff, isn't it?" she asked lazily.
Hugh was startled. Her breath was redolent of whisky.
"Sure is," he replied and executed a difficult step, the girl following him without the slightest difficulty. She danced remarkably, but he was glad when he was tapped on the shoulder and another brother claimed Hester. The whisky breath had repelled him.
As the evening wore on he danced with a good many girls who had whisky breaths. One girl clung to him as they danced and whispered, "Hold me up, kid; I'm ginned." He had to rush a third, a dainty blond child, to the porch railing. She wasn't a pretty sight as she vomited into the garden; nor did Hugh find her gasped comment, "The seas are rough to-night," amusing. Another girl went sound asleep in a chair and had to be carried up-stairs and put to bed.
A number of the brothers were hilarious; a few had drunk too much and were sick; one had a "crying jag." There were men there, however, who were not drinking at all, and they were making gallant efforts to keep the sober girls away from the less sober girls and the inebriated brothers.
Hugh was not drinking. The idea of drinking at a dance was offensive to him; he thought it insulting to the girls. The fact that some of the girls were drinking horrified him. He didn't mind their smoking—well, not very much; but drinking? That was going altogether too far.
About midnight he danced again with Hester Sheville, not because he wanted to but because she had insisted. He had been standing gloomily in the doorway watching the bacchanalian scene, listening to the tom-tom of the drums when she came up to him.
"I wanta dance," she said huskily. "I wanta dance with you—you—you blond beast." Seeing no way to decline to dance with the half-drunk girl, he put his arm around her and started off. Hester's tongue was no longer in control, but her feet followed his unerringly. When the music stopped, she whispered, "Take me—ta-take me to th' th' dining-room." Wonderingly, Hugh led her across the hall. He had not been in the dining-room since the dance started, and he was amazed and shocked to find half a dozen couples in the big chairs or on the divans in close embrace. He paused, but Hester led him to an empty chair, shoved him clumsily down into it, and then flopped down on his lap.
"Le's—le's pet," she whispered. "I wanna pet."
Again Hugh smelled the whisky fumes as she put her hot mouth to his and kissed him hungrily. He was angry, angry and humiliated. He tried to get up, to force the girl off of his lap, but she clung tenaciously to him, striving insistently to kiss him on the mouth. Finally Hugh's anger got the better of his manners; he stood up, the girl hanging to his neck, literally tore her arms off of him, took her by the waist and set her down firmly in the chair.
"Sit there," he said softly, viciously; "sit there."
She began to cry, and he walked rapidly out of the dining-room, his cheeks flaming and his eyes flashing; and the embracing couples paid no attention to him at all. He had to pass the door of the library to get his top-coat—he made up his mind to get out of the "goddamned house"—and was walking quickly by the door when one of the patronesses called to him.
"Oh, Mr. Carver. Will you come here a minute?"
"Surely, Mrs. Reynolds." He entered the library and waited before the dowager.
"I left my wrap up-stairs—in Mr. Merrill's room, I think it is. I am getting a little chilly. Won't you get it for me?"
"Of course. It's in Merrill's room?"
"I think it is. It's right at the head of the stairs. The wrap's blue with white fur."
Hugh ran up the stairs, opened Merrill's door, switched on the lights, and immediately spotted the wrap lying over the back of a chair. He picked it up and was about to leave the room when a noise behind him attracted his attention. He turned and saw a man and a girl lying on the bed watching him.
Hugh stared blankly at them, his mouth half open.
"Get th' hell out of here," the man said roughly.
For an instant Hugh continued to stare; then he whirled about, walked out of the room, slammed the door behind him, and hurried down the stairs. He delivered the wrap to Mrs. Reynolds, and two minutes later he was out of the house walking, almost running, across the campus to Surrey Hall. Once there, he tore off his top-coat, his jacket, his collar and tie, and threw himself down into a chair.
So this was college! This was the fraternity—that goddamned rat house! That was what he had pledged allegiance to, was it? Those were his brothers, were they? Brothers! Brothers!
He fairly leaped out of his chair and began to pace the floor. College! Gentlemen! A lot of muckers chasing around with a bunch of rats; that's what they were. Great thing—fraternities. No doubt about it, they were a great institution.
He paused in his mental tirade, suddenly conscious of the fact that he wasn't fair. Some of the fraternities, he knew, would never stand for any such performance as he had witnessed that evening; most of them, he was sure, wouldn't. It was just the Nu Deltas and one or two others; well, maybe three or four. So that's what he had joined, was it?
He thought of Hester Sheville, of her whisky breath, her lascivious pawing—and his hands clenched. "Filthy little rat," he said aloud, "the stinkin', rotten rat."
Then he remembered that there had been girls there who hadn't drunk anything, girls who somehow managed to move through the whole orgy calm and sweet. His anger mounted. It was a hell of a way to treat a decent girl, to ask her to a dance with a lot of drunkards and soused rats.
He was warm with anger. Reckless of the buttons, he tore off his waistcoat and threw it on a chair. The jeweled fraternity pin by the pocket caught his eye. He stared at it for a moment and then slowly unpinned it. He let it lie in his hand and addressed it aloud, hardly aware of the fact that he was speaking at all.
"So that's what you stand for, is it? For snobs and politicians and muckers. Well, I don't want any more of you—not—one—damn—bit—more—of—you."
He tossed the pin indifferently upon the center-table, making up his mind that he would resign from the fraternity the next day.
When the next day came he found, however, that his anger had somewhat abated. He was still indignant, but he didn't have the courage to go through with his resignation. Such an action, he knew, would mean a great deal of publicity, publicity impossible to avoid. The fraternity would announce its acceptance of his resignation in "The Sanford Daily News"; and then he would either have to lie or start a scandal.
As the days went by and he thought more and more about the dance, he began to doubt his indignation. Wasn't he after all a prude to get so hot? Wasn't he perhaps a prig, a sissy? At times he thought that he was; at other times he was sure that he wasn't. He could be permanently sure of only one thing, that he was a cynic.
Hugh avoided the Nu Delta house for the remainder of the term and spent more time on his studies than he had since he had entered college. The result was, of course, that he made a good record, and the A that Henley gave him in English delighted him so much that he almost forgot his fraternity troubles. Not quite, however. During the first few weeks of the vacation he often thought of talking to his father about Nu Delta, but he could not find the courage to destroy his father's illusions. He found, too, that he couldn't talk to his mother about things that he had seen and learned at college. Like most of his friends, he felt that "the folks wouldn't understand."
He spent the first two months at home working on the farm, but when Norry Parker invited him to visit him for a month on Long Island Sound, Hugh accepted the invitation and departed for the Parker summer cottage in high feather. He was eager to see Norry again, but he was even more eager to see New York. He had just celebrated his twentieth birthday, and he considered it disgraceful that he had never visited the "Big City," as New York was always known at Sanford. Norry met him at Grand Central, a livelier and more robust Norry than Hugh had ever seen. The boy actually seemed like a boy and not a sprite; his cheeks were tanned almost brown, and his gray eyes danced with excitement when he spotted Hugh in the crowd.
"Gee, Hugh, I'm glad to see you," he exclaimed, shaking Hugh's hand joyously. "I'm tickled to death that you could come."
"So am I," said Hugh heartily, really happy to see Norry looking so well, and thrilled to be in New York. "Gosh, you look fine. I hardly know you. Where'd you get all the pep?"
"Swimming' and sailing. This is the first summer I've been well enough to swim all I want to. Oh, it's pretty down where we are. You'll love the nights, Hugh. The Sound is wonderful."
"I'll bet. Well, where do we go from here? Say, this is certainly a whale of a station, isn't it? It makes me feel like a hick."
"Oh, you'll get over that soon enough," Norry, the seasoned New Yorker, assured him easily. "We're going right out to the cottage. It's too hot to-day to run around the city, but we'll come in soon and you can give it the once-over." He took Hugh's arm and led him out of the station.
It had never entered Hugh's mind that Norry's father might be rich. He had noticed that Norry's clothes were very well tailored, and Norry had told him that his violin was a Cremona, but the boy was not lavish with money and never talked about it at all. Hugh was therefore surprised and a little startled to see Norry walk up to an expensive limousine with a uniformed chauffeur at the wheel. He wondered if the Parkers weren't too high-hat for him?
"We'll go right home, Martin," Norry said to the chauffeur. "Get in, Hugh."
The Parker cottage was a short distance from New Rochelle. It was a beautiful place, hardly in the style of a Newport "cottage" but roomy and very comfortable. It was not far from the water, and the Parkers owned their own boat-house.
Mrs. Parker was on the veranda when the car drew up at the steps.
"Hello, Mother," Norry called.
She got up and ran lightly down the steps, her hand held out in welcome to Hugh.
"I know that you are Hugh Carver," she said in a beautifully modulated voice, "and I am really delighted to meet you. Norry has talked so much about you that I should have felt cheated if you hadn't come."
Hugh's fears immediately departed. "I should have myself," he replied. "It was awfully good of you to invite me."
After meeting Norry's father and mother, Hugh understood the boy better. Mrs. Parker was both charming and pretty, a delightful woman who played the piano with professional skill. Mr. Parker was an artist, a portrait-painter, and he got prices for his pictures that staggered Hugh when Norry mentioned them casually. He was a quiet, grave man with gray eyes like his son's.
When he had a minute alone with Hugh, he said to him with simple sincerity: "You have been very kind to Norry, and we are grateful. He is a strange, poetic lad who needs the kind of understanding friendship you have given him. We should have been deeply disappointed if you hadn't been able to visit us."
The expressions of gratitude embarrassed Hugh, but they made him feel sure of his welcome; and once he was sure of that he began to enjoy himself as he never had before. Before the month was out, he had made many visits to New York and was able to talk about both the Ritz and Macdougal Alley with elaborate casualness when he returned to college. He and Norry went swimming nearly every day and spent hours sailing on the Sound.
Norry introduced him to the many girls who had summer homes near the Parker cottage. They were a new type to him, boarding-school products, sure of themselves, "finished" with a high polish that glittered effectively, daringly frank both in their speech and their actions, beautiful dancers, good swimmers, full of "dirt," as they called gossip, and as offhand with men as they were with each other. Within a week Hugh got over his prejudice against women's smoking. Nearly every woman he met, including Mrs. Parker, smoked, and every girl carried her cigarette-case.
Most of the girls treated Norry as if he were a very nice small boy, but they adopted a different attitude toward Hugh. They flirted with him, perfected his "petting" technique, occasionally treated him to a drink, and made no pretense of hiding his attraction for them.
At first Hugh was startled and a little repelled, but he soon grew to like the frankness, the petting, and the liquor; and he was having a much too exciting time to pause often for criticism of himself or anybody else. It was during the last week of his visit that he fell in love.
He and Norry were standing near the float watching a number of swimmers. Suddenly Hugh was attracted by a girl he had never seen before. She wore a red one-piece bathing-suit that revealed every curve of her slender, boyish figure. She noticed Norry and threw up her arm in greeting.
"Who is she?" Hugh demanded eagerly.
"Cynthia Day. She's just back from visiting friends in Maine. She's an awfully good swimmer. Watch her." The girl poised for an instant on the edge of the float and then dived gracefully into the water, striking out with a powerful overhand stroke for another float a quarter of a mile out in the Sound. The boys watched her red cap as she rounded the float and started back, swimming easily and expertly. When she reached the beach, she ran out of the water, rubbed her hands over her face, and then strolled over to Norry.
Her hair was concealed by a red bathing-cap, but Hugh guessed that it was brown; at any rate, her eyes were brown and very large. She had an impudent little nose and full red lips.
"'Lo, Norry," she said, holding out her hand. "How's the infant?"
"Oh, I'm fine. This is my friend Hugh Carver."
"I've heard about you," she said as they shook hands. "I only got back last night, but everybody seems to be digging dirt about Norry's friend. Three of my friends are enemies on account of you, and one of 'em says she's going in swimming some day and forget to come back if you don't give her a little more time."
Hugh blushed, but he had learned a few things in the past weeks.
"I wish they would tell me about it," he said with a fair assumption of ease. "Why didn't you come back sooner?" He was pleased with that speech. He wouldn't have dared it a month before.
The brown eyes smiled at him. "Because I didn't know you were here. You haven't got a cigarette about you, have you? Norry's useless when it comes to smokes."
Hugh did have a package of cigarettes. She took one, put it in her mouth, and waited for Hugh to light it for her. When he did, she gazed curiously over the flame at him. She puffed the cigarette for a moment and then said, "You look like a good egg. Let's talk." She threw herself down on the sand, and the boys sat down beside her.
From that moment Hugh was lost. For the remaining days of the visit he spent every possible moment with Cynthia, fascinated by her chatter, thrilled by the touch of her hand. She made no objection when he offered shyly to kiss her; she quietly put her arms around his neck and turned her face up to his—and her kisses set him aflame.
For once, he did not want to return to college, and when he arrived in Haydensville he felt none of his usual enthusiasm. The initiation of the freshmen amused him only slightly, and the football games did not seem so important as they had the two previous years. A letter from Cynthia was the most important thing in the world, and she wrote good letters, chatty, gay, and affectionate.
Custom made it necessary for him to room in the fraternity house. It was an unwritten law of Nu Delta that all members live in the house their last two years, and Hugh hardly dared to contest the law. There were four men in the chapter whom he thoroughly liked and with whom he would have been glad to room, but they all had made their arrangements by the time he spoke to them; so he was forced to accept Paul Vinton's invitation to room with him.
Vinton was a cheerful youth with too much money and not enough sense. He wanted desperately to be thought a good fellow, a "regular guy," and he was willing to buy popularity if necessary by standing treat to any one every chance he got. He was known all over the campus as a "prize sucker."
He bored Hugh excessively by his confidences and almost offensive generosity. He always had a supply of Scotch whisky on hand, and he offered it to him so constantly that Hugh drank too much because it was easier and pleasanter to drink than to refuse.
Tucker had graduated, and the new president, Leonard Gates, was an altogether different sort of man. There had been a fight in the fraternity over his election. The "regular guys" opposed him and offered one of their own number as a candidate. Gates, however, was prominent in campus activities and had his own following in the house; as a result, he was elected by a slight margin.
He won Hugh's loyalty at the first fraternity meeting after he took the chair. "Some things are going to be changed in this house," he said sternly, "or I will bring influence to bear that will change them." Every one knew that he referred to the national president of the fraternity. "There will be no more drunken brawls in this house such as we had at the last house dance. Any one who brings a cheap woman into this house at a dance will hear from it. Both my fiancée and my sister were at the last dance. I do not intend that they shall be insulted again. This is not a bawdy-house, and I want some of you to remember that."
He tried very hard to pass a rule, such as many of the fraternities had, that no one could bring liquor into the house and that there should be no gambling. He failed, however. The brothers took his scolding about the dance because most of them were heartily ashamed of that occasion; but they announced that they did not intend to have the chapter turned into the S. C. A., which was the Sanford Christian Association. It would have been well for Hugh if the law had been passed. Vinton's insistent generosity was rapidly turning him into a steady drinker. He did not get drunk, but he was taking down more high-balls than were good for him.
Outside of his drinking, however, he was leading a virtuous and, on the whole, an industrious life. He was too much in love with Cynthia Day to let his mind dwell on other women, and he had become sufficiently interested in his studies to like them for their own sake.
A change had come over the campus. It was inexplicable but highly significant. There had been evidences of it the year before, but now it became so evident that even some of the members of the faculty were aware of it. Intolerance seemed to be dying, and the word "wet" was heard less often. The undergraduates were forsaking their old gods. The wave of materialism was swept back by an in-rushing tide of idealism. Students suddenly ceased to concentrate in economics and filled the English and philosophy classes to overflowing.
No one was able really to explain the causes for the change, but it was there and welcome. The "Sanford Literary Magazine," which had been slowly perishing for several years, became almost as popular as the "Cap and Bells," the comic magazine, which coined money by publishing risque jokes and pictures of slightly dressed women. A poetry magazine daringly made its appearance on the campus and, to the surprise of its editors, was received so cordially that they were able to pay the printer's bill.
It became the fashion to read. Instructors in English were continually being asked what the best new books were or if such and such a book was all that it was "cracked up to be." If the instructor hadn't read the book, he was treated to a look of contempt that sent him hastening to the library.
Of course, not all of the undergraduates took to reading and thinking; the millennium had not arrived, but the intelligent majority began to read and discuss books openly, and the intelligent majority ruled the campus.
Hugh was one of the most enthusiastic of the readers. He was taking a course in nineteenth-century poetry with Blake, the head of the English department. His other instructors either bored him or left him cold, but Blake turned each class hour into a thrilling experience. He was a handsome man with gray hair, dark eyes, and a magnificent voice. He taught poetry almost entirely by reading it, only occasionally interpolating an explanatory remark, and he read beautifully. His reading was dramatic, almost tricky; but it made the poems live for his students, and they reveled in his classes.
Hugh's junior year was made almost beautiful by that poetry course and by his adoration for Cynthia. He was writing verses constantly—and he found "Cynthia" an exceedingly troublesome word; it seemed as if nothing would rime with it. At times he thought of taking to free verse, but the results of his efforts did not satisfy him. He always had the feeling that he had merely chopped up some rather bad prose; and he was invariably right. Cynthia wrote him that she loved the poems he sent her because they were so passionate. He blushed when he read her praise. It disturbed him. He wished that she had used a different word.
For the first term Hugh slid comfortably down a well oiled groove of routine. He went to the movies regularly, wrote as regularly to Cynthia and thought about her even more, read enormous quantities of poetry, "bulled" with his friends, attended all the athletic contests, played cards occasionally, and received his daily liquor from Vinton. He no longer protested when Vinton offered him a drink; he accepted it as a matter of course, and he had almost completely forgotten that "smoking wasn't good for a runner." He had just about decided that he wasn't a runner, anyway.
One evening in early spring he met George Winsor as he was crossing the campus.
"Hello, George. Where are you going?"
"Over to Ted Alien's room. Big poker party to-night. Don't you want to sit in?"
"You told me last week that you had sworn off poker. How come you're playing again so soon?" Hugh strolled lazily along with Winsor.
"Not poker, Hugh—craps. I've sworn off craps for good, and maybe I'll swear off poker after to-night. I'm nearly a hundred berries to the good right now, and I can afford to play if I want to."
"I'm a little ahead myself," said Hugh. "I don't play very often, though, except in the house when the fellows insist. I can't shoot craps at all, and I get tired of cards after a couple of hours."
"I'm a damn fool to play," Winsor asserted positively, "a plain damn fool, I oughtn't to waste my time at it, but I'm a regular fiend for the game. I get a great kick out of it. How's to sit in with us? There's only going to be half a dozen fellows. Two-bit limit."
"Yeah, it'll start with a two-bit limit, but after an hour deuces'll be wild all over the place and the sky will be the limit. I've sat in those games before."
Winsor laughed. "Guess you're right, but what's the odds? Better shoot a few hands."
"Well, all-right, but I can't stay later than eleven. I've got a quiz in eccy to-morrow, and I've got to bone up on it some time to-night."
"I've got that quiz, too. I'll leave with you at eleven."
Winsor and Hugh entered the dormitory and climbed the stairs. Allen's door was open, and several undergraduates were lolling around the room, smoking and chatting. They welcomed the new-comers with shouts of "Hi, Hugh," and "Hi, George."
Allen had a large round table in the center of his study, and the boys soon had it cleared for action. Allen tossed the cards upon the table, produced several ash-trays, and then carefully locked the door.
"Keep an ear open for Mac," he admonished his friends; "He's warned me twice now," "Mac" was the night-watchman, and he had a way of dropping in unexpectedly on gambling parties. "Here are the chips. You count 'em out, George. Two-bit limit."
The boys drew up chairs to the table, lighted cigarettes or pipes, and began the game. Hugh had been right; the "two-bit limit" was soon lifted, and Allen urged his guests to go as far as they liked.
There were ugly rumors about Allen around the campus. He was good looking, belonged to a fraternity in high standing, wore excellent clothes, and did fairly well in his studies; but the rumors persisted. There were students who insisted that he hadn't the conscience of a snake, and a good many of them hinted that no honest man ever had such consistently good luck at cards and dice.
The other boys soon got heated and talkative, but Allen said little besides announcing his bids. His blue eyes remained coldly expressionless whether he won or lost the hand; his crisp, curly brown hair remained neatly combed and untouched by a nervous hand; his lips parted occasionally in a quiet smile: he was the perfect gambler, never excited, always in absolute control of himself.
Hugh marveled at the control as the evening wore on. He was excited, and, try as he would, he could not keep his excitement from showing. Luck, however, was with him; by ten o'clock he was seventy-five dollars ahead, and most of it was Allen's money.
Hugh passed by three hands in succession, unwilling to take any chances. He had decided to "play close," never betting unless he held something worth putting his money on.
Allen dealt the fourth hand. "Ante up," he said quietly. The five other men followed his lead in tossing chips into the center of the table. He looked at his hand. "Two blue ones if you want to stay in." Winsor and two of the men threw down their cards, but Hugh and a lad named Mandel each shoved two blue chips into the pot.
Hugh had three queens and an ace. "One card," he said to Allen. Allen tossed him the card, and Hugh's heart leaped when he saw that it was an ace.
"Two cards, Ted," Mandel requested, nervously crushing his cigarette in an ash-tray. He picked up the cards one at a time, lifting each slowly by one corner, and peeking at it as if he were afraid that a sudden full view would blast him to eternity. His face did not change expression as he added the cards to the three that he held in his hand.
"I'm sitting pretty," Allen remarked casually, picking up the five cards that he had laid down before he dealt.
The betting began, Hugh nervous, openly excited, Mandel stonily calm, Allen completely at ease. At first the bets were for a dollar, but they gradually rose to five. Mandel threw down his cards.
"Fight it out," he said morosely. "I've thrown away twenty-five bucks, and I'll be damned if I'm going to throw away any more to see your four-flushes."
Allen lifted a pile of chips and let them fall lightly, clicking a rapid staccato. "It'll cost you ten dollars to see my hand, Hugh," he said quietly.
"It'll cost you twenty if you want to see mine," Hugh responded, tossing the equivalent to thirty dollars into the pot. He watched Allen eagerly, but Allen's face remained quite impassive as he raised Hugh another ten.
The four boys who weren't playing leaned forward, pipes or cigarettes in their mouths, their stomachs pressed against the table, their eyes narrowed and excited. The air was a stench of stale smoke; the silence between bets was electric.
The betting continued, Hugh sure that Allen was bluffing, but Allen never failed to raise him ten dollars on every bet. Finally Hugh had a hundred dollars in the pot and dared not risk more on his hand.
"I think you're bluffing, goddamn it," he said, his voice shrill and nervous. "I'll call you. Show your stinkin' hand."
"Oh, not so stinkin'," Allen replied lightly. "I've got four of a kind, all of 'em kings. Let's see your three deuces."
He tossed down his hand, and Hugh slumped in his chair at the sight of the four kings. He shoved the pile of chips toward Allen. "Take the pot, damn you. Of all the bastard luck. Look!" He slapped down his cards angrily. "A full house, queens up. Christ!" He burst into a flood of obscenity, the other boys listening sympathetically, all except Allen who was carefully stacking the chips.
In a few minutes Hugh's anger died. He remembered that he was only about twenty-five dollars behind and that he had an hour in which to recover them. His face became set and hard; his hands lost their jerky eagerness. He played carefully, never daring to enter a big pot, never betting for more than his hands were worth.
As the bets grew larger, the room grew quieter. Every one was smoking constantly; the air was heavy with smoke, and the stench grew more and more foul. Outside of a soft, "I raise you twenty," or, even, "Fifty bucks if you want to see my hand," a muttered oath or a request to buy chips, there was hardly a word said. The excitement was so intense that it hurt; the expletives smelled of the docks.
At times there was more than five hundred dollars in a pot, and five times out of seven when the pot was big, Allen won it. Win or lose, he continued cool and calm, at times smoking a pipe, other times puffing nonchalantly at a cigarette.
The acrid smoke cut Hugh's eyes; they smarted and pained, but he continued to light cigarette after cigarette, drawing the smoke deep into his lungs, hardly aware of the fact that they hurt.
He won and lost, won and lost, but gradually he won back the twenty-five dollars and a little more. The college clock struck eleven. He knew that he ought to go, but he wondered if he could quit with honor when he was ahead.
"I ought to go," he said hesitatingly. "I told George when I said that I'd sit in that I'd have to leave at eleven. I've got an eccy quiz to-morrow that I've got to study for."
"Oh, don't leave now," one of the men said excitedly. "Why, hell, man, the game's just getting warm."
"I know," Hugh agreed, "and I hate like hell to quit, but I've really got to beat it. Besides, the stakes are too big for me. I can't afford a game like this."
"You can afford it as well as I can," Mandel said irritably. "I'm over two hundred berries in the hole right now, and you can goddamn well bet that I'm not going to leave until I get them back."
"Well, I'm a hundred and fifty to the bad," Winsor announced miserably, "but I've got to go. If I don't hit that eccy, I'm going to be out of luck." He shoved back his chair. "I hate like hell to leave; but I promised Hugh that I'd leave with him at eleven, and I've got to do it."
Allen had been quite indifferent when Hugh said that he was leaving. Hugh was obviously small money, and Allen had no time to waste on chicken-feed, but Winsor was a different matter.
"You don't want to go, George, when you're in the hole. Better stick around. Maybe you'll win it back. Your luck can't be bad all night."
"You're right," said Winsor, stretching mightily. "It can't be bad all night, but I can't hang around all night to watch it change. You're welcome to the hundred and fifty, Ted, but some night soon I'm coming over and take it away from you."
Allen laughed. "Any time you say, George."
Hugh and Winsor settled their accounts, then stood up, aching and weary, their muscles cramped from three hours of sitting and nervous tension. They said brief good nights, unlocked the door—they heard Allen lock it behind them—and left their disgruntled friends, glad to be out of the noisome odor of the room.
"God, what luck!" Winsor exclaimed as they started down the hall. "I'm off Allen for good. That boy wins big pots too regularly and always loses the little ones. I bet he's a cold-deck artist or something."
"He's something all right," Hugh agreed. "Cripes, I feel dirty and stinko. I feel as if I'd been in a den."
"You have been. Say, what's that?" They had almost traversed the length of the long hall when Winsor stopped suddenly, taking Hugh by the arm. A door was open, and they could hear somebody reading.
"What's what?" Hugh asked, a little startled by the suddenness of Winsor's question.
"Listen. That poem, I've heard it somewhere before. What is it?"
Hugh listened a moment and then said: "Oh, that's the poem Prof Blake read us the other day—you know, 'marpessa.' It's about the shepherd,Apollo, andMarpessa. It's great stuff. Listen."
They remained standing in the deserted hall, the voice coming clearly to them through the open doorway. "It's Freddy Fowler," Winsor whispered. "He can sure read."
The reading stopped, and they heard Fowler say to some one, presumably his room-mate: "This is the part that I like best. Get it," Then he readIdas'splea toMarpessa: