"How wise, how uplifting, how Browningesque!" breathed Harry in satirical admiration. Trotty winced slightly and made for the door. "Don't be a fool," Harryadded, running after his retreating friend and grabbing him. "You're dead right about all that, of course, as you always are when you take the trouble to use your bean. There's just one thing, though, when all is said and done, that irritates me. Junius at Yale ends by making his senior society, in spite of all. Junius at Oxford doesn't! Do you know why? Because there aren't any senior societies there!"CHAPTER IXA LONG CHEER FOR WIMBOURNEHarry did eventually bestir himself to the extent of hiring a locker in the track house and going out and "exercising," as he called it, three or four afternoons a week. He enjoyed it, but he obviously did not take it very seriously. He was neither good enough nor enthusiastic enough to attract the attention of the coach and captain, and it was something of a surprise to all concerned when he took a first place in the low hurdles in the fall meet and became entitled to wear his class numerals."Fine work," said the captain, a small and insignificant-looking senior, who could pole vault to incredible heights without apparent effort. "Macgrath tells me you haven't come within two seconds of your time to-day in practise.""No," said Harry; "I've been working more at the jumps.""Well, you'd better stick to the hurdles from now on. We're weakest there. You practise and train regularly this year and next year you'll probably be the best man on the hurdles we have. Except Popham, of course. But we never can depend on Popham for a meet; he's always on pro, or something."That evening after dinner Harry strolled into Trotwood's room."Say, you're the hell of a fine hurdler, you are," growled the latter, from the depths of a Morris chair. Harry was somewhat taken aback till his friend suddenly clutched at his hand and began swinging it up and down like a pump handle. Then he realized that objurgation was merely Trotwood's gentle method of expressing pleasure and affection. Delight shone in his face; not delight in his triumph but in the thought that it meant something to Trotwood and that he understood Trotwood's peculiar way of showing it."That's all right, Trotty dear," he said. "Never mindabout giving me back my hand; I shall have no further use for it.""I suppose you think you're quite a man now, don't you?" continued Trotwood in the same vein. "Just because you won a damned race against people that can't run anyway.""Sweet as the evening dew upon the fields of Enna fall thy words, O sage," said Harry. "You're really quite a wonderful person at bottom, aren't you, Trotty? How did you know that the last thing I'd want was to be slathered over with congratulations by you? Good Lord, you ought to have heard Junius LeGrand on the subject!""Never mind about LeGrand. Speaking seriously, it's a great thing for you, Harry. I don't suppose you realize that, bar that unspeakable rounder Popham, you're the coming man in the hurdles from now on? Why, you've got your Y absolutely cinched for next year, with him going on the way he does!""So it seems," said Harry dryly. "I seem to have heard the name of Popham before. Suppose we talk about something else.... Look, Trotty; will you room with me next year?""Yes," answered Trotwood, blushing deeply, and continued, after a pause: "I've wanted to arrange that for some time, but I thought you'd better be the one to mention the subject first.""Why?""Oh, I don't know; I thought if I asked you, you'd accept out of plain good nature, for fear of throwing me down, and I didn't want that.""Well, as it happened, I was determined to let the first advances come from you, for very much the same reason. Until just now, when I was so afraid you'd room with some one else that I couldn't wait another minute. I've lost all sense of maidenliness, you see.""Maidenliness be hanged. You don't have to be maidenly when you've won your numerals at track."That was on a Saturday. James had been out of town with the football team and did not return till late that evening. The next day he and Harry walked out to their old home together for their regular Sunday dinner with Aunt Selina. On the way they discussed at length the fine points of the game of the day before, in which Jameshad played right half with great distinction. Presently he inquired:"By the way, how about the fall meet yesterday? How did you come out?""Oh, fairly well. I only entered in the low hurdles, but I came out all right.""All right?""Yes—first.""What? Do you mean to say that you got first place in the hurdles?""Substantially that, yes.""Good Lord. I hadn't heard a thing. Went straight to bed when I got home last night and only got up this morning in time for Chapel. Why, it's the best ever, Harry! You get your numerals. You must be about the first man in your class to do that. What was your time?""Pretty rotten. Twenty-five two.""Not so bad. Gee, but that's fine for you, child!""I'm glad you're pleased, James.""It isn't merely the getting of your numerals in the fall meet, either. It means that you'll be one of the main gazabes in the track world from now on, if you work. There's no one here that can make better time than you in the hurdles, bar Popham, who makes such a fool of himself they can't use him, mostly.""Oh, damn," said Harry softly and slowly."What's the matter? Forgotten something?""No. I can't forget something, that's the trouble.""Well, whatisbiting you?""Only that if I hear the name of Popham much more, I believe I shall go mad on the spot.""Oh, don't take it so hard as that. Most likely you'll be able to beat him out anyway, if you make progress, and he's likely to drink himself out of college anyway before—""Shut up, James, for Heaven's sake!" There was real anger in Harry's tone, and James turned and looked at him with surprise. "You're as bad as every one else—worse! Don'tyouknow me better than to suppose that all my chances of happiness in college, in this world, in the next, depend on Popham's drinking himself to death? Do you think it's pleasant for me to know that every one considers my—my success, I suppose you'd call it, dependent on whether that rounder stays off probation or not? You make me sick, James."James remained silent a moment. "No offense meant," he said gently. "I'm sure I'm sorry if—""Oh, rot!" Harry disclaimed offense by slipping his hand through his brother's arm. "Only you don't seem tosee, James. That's what bothers me.""Well, no; I'm afraid I don't. It will be a great thing for you if you get your Y next year. Do you think it's low of me to wish that Popham, who is no good anyway, should get out of your way?""No; the wish is kindly meant, of course.... But this idea that my whole worldly happiness is tied up with Popham takes the pleasure out of it all, somehow. I don't give a continental whether I get my Y or not, now.""Oh, come on. Don't be morbid.""No. I've a good mind not to go out for track any more."James made no answer to this, and the two walked on in silence till they had reached the house. As they walked up the front steps James said:"You must tell Aunt Selina all about this. She'll be awfully glad to hear about it.""Including Popham," said Harry in a low voice. James made no reply to this, for it scarcely called for a reply, but his lips were ever so slightly compressed as he walked through the front door.During the idle months that followed Harry used his spare time for efforts in another and wholly different direction—a literary one. He became what is known in the parlance of the college as a "Lit.heeler"; that is, he contributed regularly to theYale Literary Magazine. For the most part his contributions were accepted, and in the course of a few months his literary reputation in his class equaled his athletic fame. His verses, written chiefly in the Calverly vein, were equally sought for by both theLit.and theRecord, the humorous publication, and his prose, which generally took the form of short stories with a great deal of very pithy, rapid-fire dialogue in them, was looked upon favorably even by the reverend dons whose duty it was to review the undergraduates' monthly offerings to the muses."Has a cinder track been laid to the top of Parnassus?" wrote one who rather prided himself on his quaint and whimsical fancy. "Do poets hurdle and sprint where once they painfully climbed? Do the joyous Nine now standat the top holding a measuring tape and wet sponges, instead of laurel wreaths, as of old? Assuredly we shall have to answer in the affirmative after reading the story 'Quest and Question' which appeared in the last issue of theLit., for not only is the writer of this, the best and brightest offering of the month, a mere freshman, but a freshman who, it seems, has distinguished himself so far for physical rather than mental agility. The 'question' about Mr. Wimbourne appears, indeed, to be whether the fleetness of his metrical feet can equal that of his material ones," etc.All this amused Harry, who, it is to be feared, sometimes laughed at rather than with his reviewers; and it gave him something to think about outside of his studies and his classmates, both of which palled upon him heavily at times. But he was irritated from time to time by the way in which even literary recreation was looked upon, by the undergraduate body. A casual and kindly remark of a classmate, "Hullo, I see you're ahead in theLit.competition," would often throw him into a state of restless depression from which only the soothing presence of Trotwood could reclaim him."Isn't it awful, Trotty," he once complained; "Euterpe (she's the lyric muse, you know), has deserted me. I haven't been able to write a line for a month. Of course the loss to the world of letters is almost irreparable, but that's not the worst of it. You see, if I can't write, I shan't do well in theLit.competition, and if I don't do well I shan't make the chairmanship, and if I don't make the chairmanship in the competition, I shan't make a senior society, and wouldn't that be terrible, Trotty?""Cheer up, old cow; you probably won't make one anyway," suggested Trotty reassuringly, and Harry laughed.The football game with Harvard was played in New Haven that year, and Harry took Aunt Selina to it. Aunt Selina had never seen James play, and was anxious to go on that account, though she had not been to a game for many years, and even the last one she had seen was baseball."You must explain the fine points of the game to me, my dear," she told him as they drove grandly out to the field in her victoria. "You see, I have not been to a gamesince the seventies, and I daresay the rules have changed somewhat since then. I used to take a great interest in it, but I've forgotten all about it, now."They were obliged to abandon the victoria at some distance from the stands, rather to Aunt Selina's consternation, for she had secretly supposed that they would watch the play from the carriage, as of old. She was consequently somewhat bewildered when, after fifteen or twenty minutes of such shoving and shouldering as she had never experienced, she found herself in a vast amphitheater which forty thousand people were trying to convert into pandemonium, with very fair success. As they wormed their way along the sidelines toward their seats, a deafening roar suddenly burst from the stands on the other side of the field, which caused Aunt Selina to clutch her nephew's arm in affright."Harry, whatisit?" she asked. "Whatare they making that frightful noise about?""That's the Harvard cheer," replied Harry calmly. "You'll hear the Yale people answering with theirs in just a minute."The Yale people did answer, but it would be too much to say that Aunt Selina heard. She was vaguely conscious of going up some steps and being propelled past a line of people to what Harry told her were their seats, though she could see nothing but a narrow bit of board. Nevertheless she sat down, and tried to accustom her ears and eyes to chaos; just such a chaos, she thought, as Satan fell into, only larger and noisier."Here we are," Harry was saying cheerfully, "just in time, too. The teams will be coming on in a minute or two. What splendid seats James has got us, bang on the forty yard line. Why, we're practically in the cheering section! Do you know the Yale cheer, Aunt Selina? You must cheer too, you know; it's expected of you.... Here comes the Yale team...."Aunt Selina lost the rest, as chaos broke forth with redoubled vigor. She saw a group of blue-sweatered figures run diagonally across the field, and thought the game had begun."Which is James?" she asked feverishly, feeling chaos work its way into her own bosom. "Do you think he'll win, Harry? Oh, I do hope he'll win!"When the team lined up for its short preliminary practise Harry pointed James out to her in his place at right halfback."I see," she said, gazing intently through her field glasses, "he's one of those three little ones at the back. Does that mean that he'll be the one to kick the ball? I'd rather he kicked it than be in the middle of all that tearing about. Poor boy, how pale he looks!""He won't look pale long," said Harry grimly.Aunt Selina by this time felt every drop of sporting blood in her course through her veins. "Which is the pitcher, Harry?" she inquired knowingly, and was not in the least abashed when her nephew informed her that there was no pitcher in football."Well, well," said she indulgently, "isn't there really? Things do change so; I can't pretend to keep up with them. I remember there used to be a pitcher in my time, and Loring Ainsworth used to be it."Just then the teams set to in deadly earnest, and conversation died. In bewildered silence Aunt Selina watched the twenty-two players as they ran madly and inexplicably up and down the field, pursued by the fiendish yells of the spectators, and wondered if in truth, she were dead and this—well, purgatory.She made no attempt to understand anything that was going on down on the field, or even to watch it. She turned her attention to Harry; he seemed to be the most familiar and explicable object in sight, though she wondered why he should leap to his feet from time to time shouting such nonsense as "Block it, you ass!" or "Nail him, Sammy, nail him!" or "First down! Yay-y-y!" Presently she became aware of a growing intensity in the excitement. The players seemed to be moving gradually down toward one end of the field, and short periods of breathless silence in the audience punctuated the shouts. She heard cries of "Touchdown! Touchdown!" emanate from all directions, but they meant nothing to her. The players moved further and further away, till they were all huddled into one little corner of the field. Every time they tumbled over together in that awful human scrap-heap she shut her eyes, and did not open them again till she was sure it was all right. Finally, after one of those painful moments, there was a relapse of chaos, fifty times more severe than anyof the previous attacks. Women, as well as men, shrieked like maniacs, and threw things into the air. Trumpets bellowed and rattles rattled; somewhere in the background was a sound of a brass band, of an organized cheer. Hats and straw mats flew through the air in swarms."What is it?" shrieked Aunt Selina. "Who won? Who won?""It's a touchdown!" Harry shouted in her ear. "For Yale! It counts five!" (It did, then.) "And James did it! James has made a touchdown!" And in a moment Aunt Selina had the unusual pleasure of hearing her own name shouted in concert by ten or fifteen thousand people at the top of their voices."—rah rah rah Wimbourne! Wimbourne! Wimbourne!" shouted the crowd, at the end of the long Yale cheer, and they went on shouting it, nine times; then another long cheer, and nine more Wimbournes, and so on.It was a great moment. Is it to be wondered that Aunt Selina, who did not know a touchdown from a nose-guard, shrieked with the others and wept like a baby? Is it strange that Harry, to whom the event meant more than to any other person among the forty thousand, should have forgotten himself in the expression of his natural joy; should have forgotten where and what and who he was, everything but the one absorbing fact that James had made a touchdown? We think not, and we have reason to believe that every man jack out of the forty thousand would have agreed with us. One did, we know. She thought it was the most natural thing in the world, though it did set her coughing and disarranged her hat and veil beyond all hope of recovery without the assistance of a mirror, not to mention a comb and hairbrush. And Harry needn't apologize any more, for she wouldn't hear of it; and the way she had behaved herself, in the first excruciating moment, was a Perfect Disgrace. So they were quits on that matter, and might she introduce Mr. Carruthers? Mr. Wimbourne. Was Harry surprised that she knew who he was? Well, she would explain, and also tell him who she was herself, if she could ever get the hair out of her mouth and eyes.For it must be explained that Harry, in his transports of exultation, had behaved in a very unseemly manner toward his next-door neighbor on the right hand. AuntSelina, who sat on his left, had sunk, exhausted with joy and excitement, to her seat as soon as she was told that James had made a touchdown, and Harry, whose feelings were of a nature that demanded immediate physical expression, had unconsciously relieved them on the person of his other neighbor, who still remained standing; never noticing who or what she was, even that she happened to be a young and attractive woman. Harry never could remember what he had done in those hectic seconds that immediately preceded his awareness of her existence; according to her own subsequent account he had slapped her violently several times on the back, put his arm around her, shaken her by the scruff of her neck and shouted inarticulate and impossible things in her ear.The interval of hair-recovery was tactfully designed to give Harry a moment's grace in which to recall, if possible, his neighbor's identity; she was perfectly able to tell who she was with the hair in her mouth and eyes, proof of which was that she had been talking in that condition for the past few minutes. Harry was grateful for the intermission."Why of course I know you!" he exclaimed, as soon as the dying away of the last nine Wimbournes made conversation feasible. "It was stupid of me not to remember before. Do you remember; dancing school?.... It must have been ten years ago, though; and youhavechanged!""Yes, I suppose I have changed—thank Heaven!" The exclamation given with a smile through a now unimpeachably neat veil, seemed in some subtle, curious way to vindicate Harry, to emphasize his innocence in failing to recognize her. "I know what I looked like then, all long black legs and stringy yellow hair—""Not stringy," said Harry, recognizing his cue; "silky. I remember the long black—the stockings, too. And lots of white fluffy stuff in between; lace, and all that.... And we used to dance a good deal together, because we were the two youngest there, and you were so nice about it, too, when you wanted to dance with the older boys. But how did you know me? Haven't I changed, too?""Oh, yes; but not so much. Boys don't. Beside, I knew your aunt by sight....""I'm sorry, I forgot," said Harry. "Aunt Selina, doyou know Miss Elliston? And Mr. Carruthers, my aunt.""Madge Elliston," corrected the girl, smiling, "you know my mother, I think, Miss Wimbourne.""Indeed I do, my dear; I am delighted to meet her daughter," said Aunt Selina, who had had time to recover her customarygrande dameair, "I knew her when she was Margaret Seymour; we used to be great friends."And so forth, through the brief but blessed respite that follows a touchdown. There is no need to quote the conversation in full, for it degenerated immediately into the polite and commonplace. If we could give you a picture of Madge Elliston during it, if we could do justice to the sweetness and deference of her manner toward Aunt Selina, her occasional smile, and the easy way she managed to bring both Harry and Mr. Carruthers into the conversation, that would be a different thing.The next kick-off brought it to an end, and all parties concerned turned their attention once more to the field. Harry attempted to explain some of the rudiments of the game to Aunt Selina, who confessed that her recollections of the rules of the seventies were not of material assistance to her enjoyment. And so passed the first half."Do you know, I believe I know exactly what you're thinking of?" was the next thing Harry heard from his right. It was between the halves; Miss Elliston was in an intermission of Mr. Carruthers, and Harry was listening in silence to "Fair Harvard," which was being rendered across the field."Do you?" he replied. "Well, I'll tell you if you're right.""You were thinking of 'Forty Years On.'"The smile died from Harry's face, and he paused a moment before replying, almost gruffly:"Yes, I was, as a matter of fact. How did you guess it?""Oh, I know all about you, you see." She stopped, and her silence seemed to Harry to mean "I'm sorry if I've hurt you; but I wish you'd go on and talk to me, and not be absurd." So he threw off his pique and went on:"I don't know how you know about my going to Harrow, nor how you know anything about 'Forty Years On,' and I don't care much; but I put it to you, as man to man, isn't it a song that's worth thinking about?""It is! There never was such a song.""Not even 'Fair Harvard'?""No.""Not even 'Bright College Years,' to which you will shortly be treated?""Not even that." They exchanged smiles, and Harry continued, with pleasure in his voice:"Well, it is a relief to hear some one say that, in a place where 'For God, for country, and for Yale' is considered the greatest line in the whole range of English poetry. But of course I'm a heretic.""You like being a heretic?" The question took him by surprise; it was out of keeping, both in substance and in the way it was asked, with Miss Elliston's behavior up to this point. He gathered his wits and replied:"Oh, yes; who doesn't? Is there any satisfaction like that of knowing that every one else is wrong and you alone are right?""I suppose not! That's the main danger of heresy, don't you think? Subjective, not objective. Being burned at the stake doesn't matter, much; it's good for one rather than otherwise. But thinking differently from other people merely for the pleasure of being different, and above them—there's danger in that, isn't there?""Then there is no such thing as honest heresy?""That was not what I said." This remark, spoken gently and with a quizzical little smile, had none of the sharpness that cold type seems to give it. Adopting something of her manner, Harry pursued:"But I am not an honest heretic?""I didn't say that, either." Again the smile, which seemed to be directed as much toward herself as toward him, softened the words. "And aren't you rather trespassing on female methods of argument?""I don't understand.""Applying abstract remarks to one's own case; that's what women are conventionally supposed to do. But don't let's get metaphysical. What I want to say is that, though I think 'Forty Years On' is incomparably finer, as a song, than 'Bright College Years,' I wouldn't have it changed if I could. The 'For God, for country, and for Yale' part, I mean; and 'the earth is green or white with snow,'—a woefully under-appreciated line.... There is somethingpriceless, to me, in the thought of a great crowd of men, young and old, getting up and bellowing things like that together, never doubting but that it's the greatest poetry ever written. That's worth a great deal more, to me, than good poetry.... They're all such dears, too; the absurdity never hurts them a bit!""By George," said Harry slowly, "you're right. I never thought of that before. It is rather a priceless thought.""Yes, isn't it? It's the full seriousness of it that makes it so good. 'For God, for country, and for Yale'—it's no anti-climax to them; it's the way they really feel. It's absurd, it's ridiculous. But I love it, for some reason.""That's it. You make me see it all differently.... You mean, I suppose, that if we could start from the beginning with a clean slate, we would choose 'Forty Years On,' or something like it, every time. But now that we've got the other, and they sing it like that, it seems just as good, in its way ... so that we wouldn't like to change it...."He wanted to add something like "What an extraordinary young person you must be, to talk of such things to me, a stranger, under such conventional circumstances," but a simultaneous recurrence of Mr. Carruthers and the game prevented him. It is doubtful if he would have dared, anyway.He spoke no more to her that day, except to say good-by and ask if he might call. Nor did he think much more of her. We would not give a false impression on this point; he was really much more interested in the game than in Miss Elliston, and after the second half was fairly started scarcely gave her another thought. But in the moment that intervened between the end of their conversation and the absorbing scurry of the kick-off it did occur to him that Madge Elliston had grown up into an unusual girl, a girl whom he would like to know better. Their short conversation had been as different from the ordinary run of football game civilities between young men and maidens as champagne from water. Harry liked girls well enough, and got on well with them, but in general they bored him. He had never met one, except Beatrice Carson, with whom he was able to conduct anything approaching an intellectual give-and-take, and even Beatrice was no more thanan able follower in his lead. Madge Elliston was a bird of a very different feather; she had undeniably led him during every moment of their conversation. It was a new sensation; he wondered if it would always be like that, in future conversations.But football was uppermost in his mind for the remainder of that day, at least. He was proud and pleased beyond all expression about James, and longed to grasp his hand in congratulation. But he had to go all the way home with Aunt Selina after the game was over, and when at last he reached Berkeley Oval he met James hurrying away somewhere and could give him only the briefest and vaguest expressions of pleasure. On returning to York Street he learned that the team was to have a banquet that evening, in the course of which they would elect their captain for the next year. It occurred to him that it would be nice if James were elected, and it gave him pleasure to hear Trotwood and others say that his chance was as good as any one's.He stayed up to hear the result of the election, which when it came was disappointing. James had missed the honor, less, apparently, because he was not good enough, than because some one else was considered even better. Harry was sorry, though he lost no sleep over it. When he saw James next morning, he spoke first of what was uppermost in his heart."James," he said impulsively, seizing his brother's hand and hanging on to it as he spoke; "I want to say a whole lot more about yesterday. I don't mind saying you're the greatest thing that ever came down the pike, and I'm proud to own you!" and more in the same vein, which James received with smiling protests and remarks of a self-depreciatory nature. But when Harry ended up "And I'm sorry as heck about the captaincy," his manner changed."Oh, that's all right," he said. His face became grave, his whole attitude seemed to add: "And we won't talk any more about that, please; it's a sore subject."Harry's easy flow of talk stopped short, and a new feeling filled his mind. "Good Heavens, James cares, actually cares about the confounded thing," he thought, and dropped his brother's hand.CHAPTER XRUMBLINGS"Please, sir, could you give me any dope for theNewsabout your coming back to coach the football team?" asked a timid voice from the doorway."No, heeler, no; I've already said I wouldn't give anything about that till I made up my mind, and I haven't yet." Thus James, more petulantly than was his wont, from his chair below the green-shaded lamp. The heeler, obviously a freshman, blinked disappointedly through the half-gloom for a few seconds and then moved to go."Wait a bit," said James, his good-humor restored; "I'm sorry, heeler. But when I tell you that you're the thirteenth person that has come in at that door since seven o'clock, and that I've got a hundred pages of economics to read for to-morrow, perhaps you'll understand why I'm a little snappy about being interrupted.""That's all right," murmured the heeler vaguely. He was used to being snapped at by prominent seniors, but he was not used to being apologized to by them, and was not sure how he liked it."I tell you what I'll do, though," went on James. "I'll give you a locker notice that ought to have been put in long ago. Here." He reached for the heeler's notebook and wrote in it: "All senior members of the football squad are requested to remove their clothes from their lockers as the space will be wanted for spring practice." "There, that'll put you fifty words to the good, anyway," he said brightly, and the heeler went his way in peace.James had conducted himself most creditably during his college course, and in the course of a few months would graduate if not exactly in a blaze of glory, at least in a very comfortable radiance. His standard of values had been a simple but satisfactory one; first, Football; second, Curriculum; third, Other Things. Any number of the steadier and worthier portion of the college world make this their creed, and find it works out extremely well. Inthe case of James, at least, such a standard gave a sane and well-balanced view of life. He took football with the most deathly seriousness, it is true, but only in its season, and its season, owing to the rigors of the New England climate, lasts hardly more than two months out of the twelve. During that time James practically hibernated when not actually on the football field, lived mainly on boiled rice and barley water, indulged in no amusements or vices, went about thoughtful and preoccupied, scarcely spoke even to his most intimate friends, studied only just enough to keep his stand above the danger mark and slept, as Harry rather vividly put it, "anywhere from thirty to forty hours out of the twenty-four." Out of the football season he was cheerful, cordial, loved the society of his fellows, smoked, drank in moderation, went to the theater, played cards, ate every kind of food he could lay his hands on and studied with a very faithful and intelligent interest. His classmates admired him during the football season, and loved him the rest of the year. Generally speaking, he conformed closely to his type; but his type was one of the best the college evolved.After theNewsheeler left him on the evening in question he read economics uninterruptedly for about half an hour; then he took a cigarette from his case and lit it. The case was the gold one that Harry had brought him from Europe. He thought of Harry as he lay back in his chair after lighting the cigarette, and it is not too much to say that the thought of him impaired the pleasure of the first few puffs. Harry was, indeed, the chief, the only cloud on the horizon. It was too bad; he had begun so well. No one could have desired a more brilliant freshman year for him, what with his track work and his literary success and the excellent stand he maintained in his studies. And yet now, at about the middle of his sophomore year, he seemed to be going in any direction but that of fulfilling the promise of his first year. James could see for himself, and he had heard things.... Perhaps, after all, though, it was merely that he had begun too well; that his promise was fulfilled before it was fairly given. Many men graduated from college high in the esteem of their classmates without having distinguished themselves as much as Harry had in one year. Perhaps he was really going on exactly as well as before, onlypeople were just beginning to find out that he was only an American boy of nineteen, not Apollo and Hermes rolled into one. That was what James hoped; but it occurred to him that if such had been the case the idea would have come to him as a certainty, not as a hope.Harry himself sauntered into the room before the cigarette was smoked out. Well, his outward appearance had not suffered, at any rate, was James' first thought. The slimness of his figure was unimpaired; his features retained their clear-cut lines of youth and innocence; his complexion shone with the glow of health, nothing else."Give me a cigarette, and hurry up about it, too," were his first words. "I've just been under a severe mental strain.... It will probably be the last one for many moons, too, if I start in training to-morrow, like a good little boy.""Oh, of course; you've been to the call for track candidates," replied his brother, handing over the desired commodities. "Well, was it a good meeting?""Inspiring. Don't you see what a glow of enthusiasm I'm in? First Dimmock got up and opened his mouth. 'Fellows,' he said, 'I'm darned glad to see you all here to-night, but I wish there were more of you. I see fewer men out than usual, and we need more than ever this year, and I'll tell you why. We want to do better in the intercollegiates. We think we are strong enough for the dual meets, but we want to make a better show in the intercollegiates. But we've got plenty of good material here, and with that we ought to get together and work hard and show lots of the old Yale spirit, for we'll need it all in the intercollegiates.'"Well, Dimmock is a good soul, if he has got a face like a boiled cod, and we cheered and clapped and patted him on the back. Then Macgrath took the floor. He said he thought we were going to have a good year, for there was plenty of material in sight, though he was sorry to see so few there to-night. He hoped we weren't forgetting what the Yale spirit was, because we particularly wanted to do well in the intercollegiates. He spoke of the new cinder track and the lengthening of the two-twenty yard straight-away, and ended with a hope that we would all get together and do Yale credit in the intercollegiates."Then McCullen, who as perhaps you know, is manager,got up. As he is a particular friend of yours I won't try to give an exact account of what he said. His main points, however, were the fewness of the candidates present, the probable wealth of good material in hand, the new cinder track and the desirability of doing well in the intercollegiates. Lastly, a man called Hodgman, or Hodgson, or something, who was captain back in the eighties somewhere, was introduced. He spoke first of the new cinder track and straight-away, from which he lightly and gracefully went on to congratulating the team on having so much good material this year—though he saw fewer there to-night than he had expected. He closed with a touching peroration in which he intimated that the track team had in general come off well in regard to Harvard and Princeton, and what was wanted now was a little better showing against the other universities in the intercollegiates.... Oh, it was a glorious meeting!"James fully appreciated the humor of this narrative, as the sympathetic twinkle in his eye betrayed, but he merely observed after Harry had finished:"Well, that's true; they ought to do better in the intercollegiates. There's a good deal of feeling about it among the graduates, too, I believe.""Oh, it'strueenough." Harry, who felt the heat of the room, opened the window and lay down at full length on the window-seat, directly in the draught. "I'd take the word of those four noble, strapping, true-hearted men for it any day in the year. Only—only—oh, heck! Why should I have to sit up and listen to those boobs spend an hour in telling me that one thing? And what the devil do I care about it anyway, if it's the truest thing that ever happened?""Well, I care about it, though I'm no good at track and not a member of the team," commented James."Perhaps if you were on it you wouldn't care quite so much.—Well, I'll train and I'll practise regularly, not because I want Yale to win the intercollegiates, but because I think it's good for me. It is good for the figure, and I'd rather have my muscles hard than soft.""Well, it comes to the same thing, if you keep to it, and don't go gassing to the track people about your reasons.""I shall go gassing to every human being I've a mind to.—And I'll tell you one thing there's going to be troubleabout, if they try to use coercion, or the Yale spirit gag. That's about the Easter vacation; there's some talk of making the track people stay here and train. I have other plans for Easter.""What are they?—For Heaven's sake, shut that window! What a fool you are, lying in a draught like that, with the track season beginning.""James, you are every bit as bad as any of them, at heart," said Harry, shutting the window. "You wouldn't give a continental if I caught pneumonia and died in frightful agony, except for its cutting the university of a possible place in the intercollegiates.—Why, I'm going down to the Trotwoods' place in North Carolina. Trotty's going to have a large and brilliant house-party. Beatrice is going; he met her in New York not long ago and took a great shine to her." For Beatrice, in the company of Aunt Miriam, was paying a visit to the country of her dreams."What?" said James, pricking up his ears. "Beatrice going? Why hasn't Trotty asked me?""Didn't dare, I suppose," said Harry indifferently. "I'll make him, though, if you like. That's the way the King's visits are arranged; he says he'd like to visit some distinguished subject, and a third party tells the distinguished subject, who asks the King, who accepts. It's complicated, but it gets there in the end."James did not seem particularly interested in points of etiquette in royal households."What do you make out of this business of the Carsons?" he asked."What business?""Hadn't you heard? Aunt C. told me about it when I was there last Sunday. Beatrice's mother has made up her mind to sue for a divorce, and Beatrice has quarreled with her about it.""Good Lord! No, I hadn't heard a thing. I knew what the father was, of course.... Has anything in particular happened?""Apparently, yes. Aunt C. can tell you more exactly than I. Beatrice has confided the whole thing to her—they're thick as thieves already; she gets on better with her than with Aunt Miriam, even. It seems that the husband, Lord Archibald, is on to the fact that his wife hashad a good deal of money to spend lately; Uncle Giles having given her a lot since he got that—""Yes, I know. Go on.""Well, that's about the whole thing. He's been bullying her, making her give it up to him ... and one thing and another, till she got desperate, and decided to try for a complete divorce. There's plenty of ground, even for English law ... but Beatrice's idea is that there's no need. Of course, it will mean a lot of scandal. She says that if she had been there to deal with him there would have been no talk about it, and that, at worst, a separation would have been all that was necessary.""Poor Lady Archie! She has had a tough time; I shall be glad to see her well out of it. A divorce—! Well, she has more sense than I gave her credit for.""It seems to me that Beatrice is quite right," said James, a trifle stiffly. "I should have thought that a divorce was the thing most to be avoided. It's not like an American divorce.... I understand her point very well."Harry did not reply to this; he simply growled—made a curious sound in the bottom of his throat. It amounted to a polite way of saying "Nonsense!" Apparently James accepted the implied rebuke, for he said no more on the subject. His brother also was silent for some time and gazed thoughtfully out on the lights of the Campus. "I've got troubles of my own, James," he said presently. "Have you heard anything about last night yet?""Last night? No; what?""Well, you've heard of Junius LeGrand, in our class?""The actress? Yes.""Well, he's become rather a power in the class; not only he is making straight for the Dramat. presidency, but he's more or less the center of a certain clique; the social register, monogrammed cigarettes, champagne-every-night and abroad-every-summer type; the worst of it, that is. Well, I had a dreadful scene with him last night. I got a thrill and called him names, and he didn't like it.""What happened?""There was a whole bunch of us sitting round at Mory's, and I was talking partly in French, as I usually do when—when mildly excited, and referred to him as a 'petite ordure.' Of course that isn't a pretty thing to call a person, even in French, and I probably shouldn't have saidit if I hadn't been drinking. I meant it all, though, and was willing to stand by it, so when he got mad I called him other and worse things, in English. He wasn't tight, but he was pretty furious by that time, and there'd have been a free fight if people hadn't held us apart.""That's pretty poor, Harry," said James gravely, after a moment's consideration. "I don't mean your hating LeGrand—though you needn't have actually come to quarreling with him. But your being tight and he not puts you in the wrong right off.—What's all this about your drinking, anyway?""I don't, so you could notice it.... That was the first time I ever got carried beyond myself, except about once—or twice. I'm not fond of the stuff; I only drink when I want to be cheered up.""That's bad, too; it's much worse to drink when you're in bad spirits than when you're in good," said James, with a wisdom beyond his experience."After I've drunk, the good spirits are in me," retorted Harry, with rather savage humor."It's no joking matter. Harry, will you cut it out entirely, if I ask you to?""You'll have to do some tall asking, I'm afraid.—I don't like you much when you preach, James. I came here for sympathy, not sermons.""You won't get me to sympathize with your making a beast of yourself.""James, you know perfectly well you were tight as a tick at the football banquet in Boston last fall.""I'm no paragon, I admit.""You say that as if you thought you were, and expected me to say so. No, you're right—you're not. There!"James' humor suddenly changed. His grave face relaxed into a smile, he rose from his chair and wandered to the end of the room and back to the window-seat."All right, we'll leave it at that; I'm not." He stood for a moment hands in pockets, smiling down at his brother. "It's nice to find one point we can agree on, anyway.... I won't bother you. After all, I suppose there's not much danger.""No ... I don't think I should ever really get to like the stuff." But Harry did not smile and fall in with his brother's mood; he had too much on his mind still. "Ihaven't told you the most disagreeable part of it," he went on. "Something happened to-day that made me sorry I had made a fool of myself. Shep McGee came to me to-day and said that he'd heard about our littlecoup de théâtre, and that he was sorry, but being one of Junius' particular friends he couldn't be friendly with me any more unless I apologized. I was sorry, because I've always liked Shep and got on very well with him.""What did you say?""Oh, of course I was pretty peeved, and I messed it up still further. I told him I was glad he'd spoken, because henceforth my acquaintance would not be recruited conspicuously from Junius' special friends. I said that, strange as it might seem, I felt myself able to hand him, Shep, over to Junius' complete possession without a tear. I added that I thought he would find it safer in the future to choose his friends exclusively from the cause of Christ, and suggested that he might try to convert Junius to the same august organization...."Some explanation may be necessary to show why this remark outraged James' feelings to the extent it did. The organization to which Harry referred was Dwight Hall, the college home of the Y. M. C. A., Bible study classes, city and foreign mission work, in all of which branches of religious and semi-religious activity many of the worthiest undergraduates interest themselves. James particularly admired the organization and those who worked in it; he would have gone in for some department of its work himself had he possessed the qualities of a religious leader. Most of his best friends were Dwight Hall workers; the senior society to which he belonged was notorious for taking many of them into its fold yearly—so much so, indeed, that it has become a popular myth that an underground passage exists between Dwight Hall and the society hall.Consequently, Harry's contemptuous epithet, together with the tone in which he uttered it was quite enough to shock and pain James very much. But what put him out even more was the thought that Harry had said this to Shep McGee. The latter was one of the most respected men in Harry's class, and James had happened to take a particular fancy to him. He rather wondered at McGee's making a friend of such a person as LeGrand, but he did not stop to think about that now."Harry," said he in a sharp, dry voice, "I think that's the rottenest remark I ever heard you or any one else make—if you used that expression to McGee.""I did.""I never thought you were capable of saying such a rotten thing, and I don't mind your knowing what I think of it. Are you going to apologize to McGee?""No.""Well, I shall. If I can't apologize on your behalf, at least I can apologize for being your brother! What the devil do you mean by saying such a thing, in cold blood, to such a man? If you don't believe in the work yourself, can't you let other people believe in it? What do you believe in, anyway? Do you call yourself a Christian? Do you call yourself a gentleman? Do you flatter yourself that McGee isn't a hundred times a better man than you are?""Rumblings from the underground passage." This remark, given with a cold, hard little smile, in which there was no geniality, no humor, even of a mistaken nature, amounted to a direct insult. Any reference made to a Yale man about his senior society by an outsider, be it a brother or any one else, is looked upon as a breach of etiquette—was at that time, at any rate. Harry's remark was worse than that; it was a rather cowardly thrust, for he was insulting a thing that James, by reason of the secrecy to which he was bound, could not defend.James did not reply; he simply grabbed up a hat and flung himself out of the room. Harry listened to his footsteps retreating down the stairs with a sinking heart; all his anger, all his resentment ebbed with them, and by the time they had died away there was nothing left but hopeless, repentant wretchedness. In the last twenty-four hours he had made a public disgrace of himself, he had fallen out with one of his best friends, and he had wounded the feelings of the last person on earth he wanted to hurt. And all because of his asinine convictions, because he thought his ideals were a little higher than other men's, his honesty a little more impeccable than theirs.He got up and left the room, cursing himself for a fool, cursing the fate that had brought him to this pass, cursing Dwight Hall, the senior societies, the university that harbored them, the school, the country that had put ideasinto his head. But chiefest of all he cursed Junius LeGrand....But that did not do any good.The next morning he wrote and posted a note of apology to James:—Dear James—I am sorry about last night—really, I am. I will try not to make such an ass of myself again."Harry."The same evening he received an answer, also through the mail. It was simply a post-card bearing the words:
"How wise, how uplifting, how Browningesque!" breathed Harry in satirical admiration. Trotty winced slightly and made for the door. "Don't be a fool," Harryadded, running after his retreating friend and grabbing him. "You're dead right about all that, of course, as you always are when you take the trouble to use your bean. There's just one thing, though, when all is said and done, that irritates me. Junius at Yale ends by making his senior society, in spite of all. Junius at Oxford doesn't! Do you know why? Because there aren't any senior societies there!"
A LONG CHEER FOR WIMBOURNE
Harry did eventually bestir himself to the extent of hiring a locker in the track house and going out and "exercising," as he called it, three or four afternoons a week. He enjoyed it, but he obviously did not take it very seriously. He was neither good enough nor enthusiastic enough to attract the attention of the coach and captain, and it was something of a surprise to all concerned when he took a first place in the low hurdles in the fall meet and became entitled to wear his class numerals.
"Fine work," said the captain, a small and insignificant-looking senior, who could pole vault to incredible heights without apparent effort. "Macgrath tells me you haven't come within two seconds of your time to-day in practise."
"No," said Harry; "I've been working more at the jumps."
"Well, you'd better stick to the hurdles from now on. We're weakest there. You practise and train regularly this year and next year you'll probably be the best man on the hurdles we have. Except Popham, of course. But we never can depend on Popham for a meet; he's always on pro, or something."
That evening after dinner Harry strolled into Trotwood's room.
"Say, you're the hell of a fine hurdler, you are," growled the latter, from the depths of a Morris chair. Harry was somewhat taken aback till his friend suddenly clutched at his hand and began swinging it up and down like a pump handle. Then he realized that objurgation was merely Trotwood's gentle method of expressing pleasure and affection. Delight shone in his face; not delight in his triumph but in the thought that it meant something to Trotwood and that he understood Trotwood's peculiar way of showing it.
"That's all right, Trotty dear," he said. "Never mindabout giving me back my hand; I shall have no further use for it."
"I suppose you think you're quite a man now, don't you?" continued Trotwood in the same vein. "Just because you won a damned race against people that can't run anyway."
"Sweet as the evening dew upon the fields of Enna fall thy words, O sage," said Harry. "You're really quite a wonderful person at bottom, aren't you, Trotty? How did you know that the last thing I'd want was to be slathered over with congratulations by you? Good Lord, you ought to have heard Junius LeGrand on the subject!"
"Never mind about LeGrand. Speaking seriously, it's a great thing for you, Harry. I don't suppose you realize that, bar that unspeakable rounder Popham, you're the coming man in the hurdles from now on? Why, you've got your Y absolutely cinched for next year, with him going on the way he does!"
"So it seems," said Harry dryly. "I seem to have heard the name of Popham before. Suppose we talk about something else.... Look, Trotty; will you room with me next year?"
"Yes," answered Trotwood, blushing deeply, and continued, after a pause: "I've wanted to arrange that for some time, but I thought you'd better be the one to mention the subject first."
"Why?"
"Oh, I don't know; I thought if I asked you, you'd accept out of plain good nature, for fear of throwing me down, and I didn't want that."
"Well, as it happened, I was determined to let the first advances come from you, for very much the same reason. Until just now, when I was so afraid you'd room with some one else that I couldn't wait another minute. I've lost all sense of maidenliness, you see."
"Maidenliness be hanged. You don't have to be maidenly when you've won your numerals at track."
That was on a Saturday. James had been out of town with the football team and did not return till late that evening. The next day he and Harry walked out to their old home together for their regular Sunday dinner with Aunt Selina. On the way they discussed at length the fine points of the game of the day before, in which Jameshad played right half with great distinction. Presently he inquired:
"By the way, how about the fall meet yesterday? How did you come out?"
"Oh, fairly well. I only entered in the low hurdles, but I came out all right."
"All right?"
"Yes—first."
"What? Do you mean to say that you got first place in the hurdles?"
"Substantially that, yes."
"Good Lord. I hadn't heard a thing. Went straight to bed when I got home last night and only got up this morning in time for Chapel. Why, it's the best ever, Harry! You get your numerals. You must be about the first man in your class to do that. What was your time?"
"Pretty rotten. Twenty-five two."
"Not so bad. Gee, but that's fine for you, child!"
"I'm glad you're pleased, James."
"It isn't merely the getting of your numerals in the fall meet, either. It means that you'll be one of the main gazabes in the track world from now on, if you work. There's no one here that can make better time than you in the hurdles, bar Popham, who makes such a fool of himself they can't use him, mostly."
"Oh, damn," said Harry softly and slowly.
"What's the matter? Forgotten something?"
"No. I can't forget something, that's the trouble."
"Well, whatisbiting you?"
"Only that if I hear the name of Popham much more, I believe I shall go mad on the spot."
"Oh, don't take it so hard as that. Most likely you'll be able to beat him out anyway, if you make progress, and he's likely to drink himself out of college anyway before—"
"Shut up, James, for Heaven's sake!" There was real anger in Harry's tone, and James turned and looked at him with surprise. "You're as bad as every one else—worse! Don'tyouknow me better than to suppose that all my chances of happiness in college, in this world, in the next, depend on Popham's drinking himself to death? Do you think it's pleasant for me to know that every one considers my—my success, I suppose you'd call it, dependent on whether that rounder stays off probation or not? You make me sick, James."
James remained silent a moment. "No offense meant," he said gently. "I'm sure I'm sorry if—"
"Oh, rot!" Harry disclaimed offense by slipping his hand through his brother's arm. "Only you don't seem tosee, James. That's what bothers me."
"Well, no; I'm afraid I don't. It will be a great thing for you if you get your Y next year. Do you think it's low of me to wish that Popham, who is no good anyway, should get out of your way?"
"No; the wish is kindly meant, of course.... But this idea that my whole worldly happiness is tied up with Popham takes the pleasure out of it all, somehow. I don't give a continental whether I get my Y or not, now."
"Oh, come on. Don't be morbid."
"No. I've a good mind not to go out for track any more."
James made no answer to this, and the two walked on in silence till they had reached the house. As they walked up the front steps James said:
"You must tell Aunt Selina all about this. She'll be awfully glad to hear about it."
"Including Popham," said Harry in a low voice. James made no reply to this, for it scarcely called for a reply, but his lips were ever so slightly compressed as he walked through the front door.
During the idle months that followed Harry used his spare time for efforts in another and wholly different direction—a literary one. He became what is known in the parlance of the college as a "Lit.heeler"; that is, he contributed regularly to theYale Literary Magazine. For the most part his contributions were accepted, and in the course of a few months his literary reputation in his class equaled his athletic fame. His verses, written chiefly in the Calverly vein, were equally sought for by both theLit.and theRecord, the humorous publication, and his prose, which generally took the form of short stories with a great deal of very pithy, rapid-fire dialogue in them, was looked upon favorably even by the reverend dons whose duty it was to review the undergraduates' monthly offerings to the muses.
"Has a cinder track been laid to the top of Parnassus?" wrote one who rather prided himself on his quaint and whimsical fancy. "Do poets hurdle and sprint where once they painfully climbed? Do the joyous Nine now standat the top holding a measuring tape and wet sponges, instead of laurel wreaths, as of old? Assuredly we shall have to answer in the affirmative after reading the story 'Quest and Question' which appeared in the last issue of theLit., for not only is the writer of this, the best and brightest offering of the month, a mere freshman, but a freshman who, it seems, has distinguished himself so far for physical rather than mental agility. The 'question' about Mr. Wimbourne appears, indeed, to be whether the fleetness of his metrical feet can equal that of his material ones," etc.
All this amused Harry, who, it is to be feared, sometimes laughed at rather than with his reviewers; and it gave him something to think about outside of his studies and his classmates, both of which palled upon him heavily at times. But he was irritated from time to time by the way in which even literary recreation was looked upon, by the undergraduate body. A casual and kindly remark of a classmate, "Hullo, I see you're ahead in theLit.competition," would often throw him into a state of restless depression from which only the soothing presence of Trotwood could reclaim him.
"Isn't it awful, Trotty," he once complained; "Euterpe (she's the lyric muse, you know), has deserted me. I haven't been able to write a line for a month. Of course the loss to the world of letters is almost irreparable, but that's not the worst of it. You see, if I can't write, I shan't do well in theLit.competition, and if I don't do well I shan't make the chairmanship, and if I don't make the chairmanship in the competition, I shan't make a senior society, and wouldn't that be terrible, Trotty?"
"Cheer up, old cow; you probably won't make one anyway," suggested Trotty reassuringly, and Harry laughed.
The football game with Harvard was played in New Haven that year, and Harry took Aunt Selina to it. Aunt Selina had never seen James play, and was anxious to go on that account, though she had not been to a game for many years, and even the last one she had seen was baseball.
"You must explain the fine points of the game to me, my dear," she told him as they drove grandly out to the field in her victoria. "You see, I have not been to a gamesince the seventies, and I daresay the rules have changed somewhat since then. I used to take a great interest in it, but I've forgotten all about it, now."
They were obliged to abandon the victoria at some distance from the stands, rather to Aunt Selina's consternation, for she had secretly supposed that they would watch the play from the carriage, as of old. She was consequently somewhat bewildered when, after fifteen or twenty minutes of such shoving and shouldering as she had never experienced, she found herself in a vast amphitheater which forty thousand people were trying to convert into pandemonium, with very fair success. As they wormed their way along the sidelines toward their seats, a deafening roar suddenly burst from the stands on the other side of the field, which caused Aunt Selina to clutch her nephew's arm in affright.
"Harry, whatisit?" she asked. "Whatare they making that frightful noise about?"
"That's the Harvard cheer," replied Harry calmly. "You'll hear the Yale people answering with theirs in just a minute."
The Yale people did answer, but it would be too much to say that Aunt Selina heard. She was vaguely conscious of going up some steps and being propelled past a line of people to what Harry told her were their seats, though she could see nothing but a narrow bit of board. Nevertheless she sat down, and tried to accustom her ears and eyes to chaos; just such a chaos, she thought, as Satan fell into, only larger and noisier.
"Here we are," Harry was saying cheerfully, "just in time, too. The teams will be coming on in a minute or two. What splendid seats James has got us, bang on the forty yard line. Why, we're practically in the cheering section! Do you know the Yale cheer, Aunt Selina? You must cheer too, you know; it's expected of you.... Here comes the Yale team...."
Aunt Selina lost the rest, as chaos broke forth with redoubled vigor. She saw a group of blue-sweatered figures run diagonally across the field, and thought the game had begun.
"Which is James?" she asked feverishly, feeling chaos work its way into her own bosom. "Do you think he'll win, Harry? Oh, I do hope he'll win!"
When the team lined up for its short preliminary practise Harry pointed James out to her in his place at right halfback.
"I see," she said, gazing intently through her field glasses, "he's one of those three little ones at the back. Does that mean that he'll be the one to kick the ball? I'd rather he kicked it than be in the middle of all that tearing about. Poor boy, how pale he looks!"
"He won't look pale long," said Harry grimly.
Aunt Selina by this time felt every drop of sporting blood in her course through her veins. "Which is the pitcher, Harry?" she inquired knowingly, and was not in the least abashed when her nephew informed her that there was no pitcher in football.
"Well, well," said she indulgently, "isn't there really? Things do change so; I can't pretend to keep up with them. I remember there used to be a pitcher in my time, and Loring Ainsworth used to be it."
Just then the teams set to in deadly earnest, and conversation died. In bewildered silence Aunt Selina watched the twenty-two players as they ran madly and inexplicably up and down the field, pursued by the fiendish yells of the spectators, and wondered if in truth, she were dead and this—well, purgatory.
She made no attempt to understand anything that was going on down on the field, or even to watch it. She turned her attention to Harry; he seemed to be the most familiar and explicable object in sight, though she wondered why he should leap to his feet from time to time shouting such nonsense as "Block it, you ass!" or "Nail him, Sammy, nail him!" or "First down! Yay-y-y!" Presently she became aware of a growing intensity in the excitement. The players seemed to be moving gradually down toward one end of the field, and short periods of breathless silence in the audience punctuated the shouts. She heard cries of "Touchdown! Touchdown!" emanate from all directions, but they meant nothing to her. The players moved further and further away, till they were all huddled into one little corner of the field. Every time they tumbled over together in that awful human scrap-heap she shut her eyes, and did not open them again till she was sure it was all right. Finally, after one of those painful moments, there was a relapse of chaos, fifty times more severe than anyof the previous attacks. Women, as well as men, shrieked like maniacs, and threw things into the air. Trumpets bellowed and rattles rattled; somewhere in the background was a sound of a brass band, of an organized cheer. Hats and straw mats flew through the air in swarms.
"What is it?" shrieked Aunt Selina. "Who won? Who won?"
"It's a touchdown!" Harry shouted in her ear. "For Yale! It counts five!" (It did, then.) "And James did it! James has made a touchdown!" And in a moment Aunt Selina had the unusual pleasure of hearing her own name shouted in concert by ten or fifteen thousand people at the top of their voices.
"—rah rah rah Wimbourne! Wimbourne! Wimbourne!" shouted the crowd, at the end of the long Yale cheer, and they went on shouting it, nine times; then another long cheer, and nine more Wimbournes, and so on.
It was a great moment. Is it to be wondered that Aunt Selina, who did not know a touchdown from a nose-guard, shrieked with the others and wept like a baby? Is it strange that Harry, to whom the event meant more than to any other person among the forty thousand, should have forgotten himself in the expression of his natural joy; should have forgotten where and what and who he was, everything but the one absorbing fact that James had made a touchdown? We think not, and we have reason to believe that every man jack out of the forty thousand would have agreed with us. One did, we know. She thought it was the most natural thing in the world, though it did set her coughing and disarranged her hat and veil beyond all hope of recovery without the assistance of a mirror, not to mention a comb and hairbrush. And Harry needn't apologize any more, for she wouldn't hear of it; and the way she had behaved herself, in the first excruciating moment, was a Perfect Disgrace. So they were quits on that matter, and might she introduce Mr. Carruthers? Mr. Wimbourne. Was Harry surprised that she knew who he was? Well, she would explain, and also tell him who she was herself, if she could ever get the hair out of her mouth and eyes.
For it must be explained that Harry, in his transports of exultation, had behaved in a very unseemly manner toward his next-door neighbor on the right hand. AuntSelina, who sat on his left, had sunk, exhausted with joy and excitement, to her seat as soon as she was told that James had made a touchdown, and Harry, whose feelings were of a nature that demanded immediate physical expression, had unconsciously relieved them on the person of his other neighbor, who still remained standing; never noticing who or what she was, even that she happened to be a young and attractive woman. Harry never could remember what he had done in those hectic seconds that immediately preceded his awareness of her existence; according to her own subsequent account he had slapped her violently several times on the back, put his arm around her, shaken her by the scruff of her neck and shouted inarticulate and impossible things in her ear.
The interval of hair-recovery was tactfully designed to give Harry a moment's grace in which to recall, if possible, his neighbor's identity; she was perfectly able to tell who she was with the hair in her mouth and eyes, proof of which was that she had been talking in that condition for the past few minutes. Harry was grateful for the intermission.
"Why of course I know you!" he exclaimed, as soon as the dying away of the last nine Wimbournes made conversation feasible. "It was stupid of me not to remember before. Do you remember; dancing school?.... It must have been ten years ago, though; and youhavechanged!"
"Yes, I suppose I have changed—thank Heaven!" The exclamation given with a smile through a now unimpeachably neat veil, seemed in some subtle, curious way to vindicate Harry, to emphasize his innocence in failing to recognize her. "I know what I looked like then, all long black legs and stringy yellow hair—"
"Not stringy," said Harry, recognizing his cue; "silky. I remember the long black—the stockings, too. And lots of white fluffy stuff in between; lace, and all that.... And we used to dance a good deal together, because we were the two youngest there, and you were so nice about it, too, when you wanted to dance with the older boys. But how did you know me? Haven't I changed, too?"
"Oh, yes; but not so much. Boys don't. Beside, I knew your aunt by sight...."
"I'm sorry, I forgot," said Harry. "Aunt Selina, doyou know Miss Elliston? And Mr. Carruthers, my aunt."
"Madge Elliston," corrected the girl, smiling, "you know my mother, I think, Miss Wimbourne."
"Indeed I do, my dear; I am delighted to meet her daughter," said Aunt Selina, who had had time to recover her customarygrande dameair, "I knew her when she was Margaret Seymour; we used to be great friends."
And so forth, through the brief but blessed respite that follows a touchdown. There is no need to quote the conversation in full, for it degenerated immediately into the polite and commonplace. If we could give you a picture of Madge Elliston during it, if we could do justice to the sweetness and deference of her manner toward Aunt Selina, her occasional smile, and the easy way she managed to bring both Harry and Mr. Carruthers into the conversation, that would be a different thing.
The next kick-off brought it to an end, and all parties concerned turned their attention once more to the field. Harry attempted to explain some of the rudiments of the game to Aunt Selina, who confessed that her recollections of the rules of the seventies were not of material assistance to her enjoyment. And so passed the first half.
"Do you know, I believe I know exactly what you're thinking of?" was the next thing Harry heard from his right. It was between the halves; Miss Elliston was in an intermission of Mr. Carruthers, and Harry was listening in silence to "Fair Harvard," which was being rendered across the field.
"Do you?" he replied. "Well, I'll tell you if you're right."
"You were thinking of 'Forty Years On.'"
The smile died from Harry's face, and he paused a moment before replying, almost gruffly:
"Yes, I was, as a matter of fact. How did you guess it?"
"Oh, I know all about you, you see." She stopped, and her silence seemed to Harry to mean "I'm sorry if I've hurt you; but I wish you'd go on and talk to me, and not be absurd." So he threw off his pique and went on:
"I don't know how you know about my going to Harrow, nor how you know anything about 'Forty Years On,' and I don't care much; but I put it to you, as man to man, isn't it a song that's worth thinking about?"
"It is! There never was such a song."
"Not even 'Fair Harvard'?"
"No."
"Not even 'Bright College Years,' to which you will shortly be treated?"
"Not even that." They exchanged smiles, and Harry continued, with pleasure in his voice:
"Well, it is a relief to hear some one say that, in a place where 'For God, for country, and for Yale' is considered the greatest line in the whole range of English poetry. But of course I'm a heretic."
"You like being a heretic?" The question took him by surprise; it was out of keeping, both in substance and in the way it was asked, with Miss Elliston's behavior up to this point. He gathered his wits and replied:
"Oh, yes; who doesn't? Is there any satisfaction like that of knowing that every one else is wrong and you alone are right?"
"I suppose not! That's the main danger of heresy, don't you think? Subjective, not objective. Being burned at the stake doesn't matter, much; it's good for one rather than otherwise. But thinking differently from other people merely for the pleasure of being different, and above them—there's danger in that, isn't there?"
"Then there is no such thing as honest heresy?"
"That was not what I said." This remark, spoken gently and with a quizzical little smile, had none of the sharpness that cold type seems to give it. Adopting something of her manner, Harry pursued:
"But I am not an honest heretic?"
"I didn't say that, either." Again the smile, which seemed to be directed as much toward herself as toward him, softened the words. "And aren't you rather trespassing on female methods of argument?"
"I don't understand."
"Applying abstract remarks to one's own case; that's what women are conventionally supposed to do. But don't let's get metaphysical. What I want to say is that, though I think 'Forty Years On' is incomparably finer, as a song, than 'Bright College Years,' I wouldn't have it changed if I could. The 'For God, for country, and for Yale' part, I mean; and 'the earth is green or white with snow,'—a woefully under-appreciated line.... There is somethingpriceless, to me, in the thought of a great crowd of men, young and old, getting up and bellowing things like that together, never doubting but that it's the greatest poetry ever written. That's worth a great deal more, to me, than good poetry.... They're all such dears, too; the absurdity never hurts them a bit!"
"By George," said Harry slowly, "you're right. I never thought of that before. It is rather a priceless thought."
"Yes, isn't it? It's the full seriousness of it that makes it so good. 'For God, for country, and for Yale'—it's no anti-climax to them; it's the way they really feel. It's absurd, it's ridiculous. But I love it, for some reason."
"That's it. You make me see it all differently.... You mean, I suppose, that if we could start from the beginning with a clean slate, we would choose 'Forty Years On,' or something like it, every time. But now that we've got the other, and they sing it like that, it seems just as good, in its way ... so that we wouldn't like to change it...."
He wanted to add something like "What an extraordinary young person you must be, to talk of such things to me, a stranger, under such conventional circumstances," but a simultaneous recurrence of Mr. Carruthers and the game prevented him. It is doubtful if he would have dared, anyway.
He spoke no more to her that day, except to say good-by and ask if he might call. Nor did he think much more of her. We would not give a false impression on this point; he was really much more interested in the game than in Miss Elliston, and after the second half was fairly started scarcely gave her another thought. But in the moment that intervened between the end of their conversation and the absorbing scurry of the kick-off it did occur to him that Madge Elliston had grown up into an unusual girl, a girl whom he would like to know better. Their short conversation had been as different from the ordinary run of football game civilities between young men and maidens as champagne from water. Harry liked girls well enough, and got on well with them, but in general they bored him. He had never met one, except Beatrice Carson, with whom he was able to conduct anything approaching an intellectual give-and-take, and even Beatrice was no more thanan able follower in his lead. Madge Elliston was a bird of a very different feather; she had undeniably led him during every moment of their conversation. It was a new sensation; he wondered if it would always be like that, in future conversations.
But football was uppermost in his mind for the remainder of that day, at least. He was proud and pleased beyond all expression about James, and longed to grasp his hand in congratulation. But he had to go all the way home with Aunt Selina after the game was over, and when at last he reached Berkeley Oval he met James hurrying away somewhere and could give him only the briefest and vaguest expressions of pleasure. On returning to York Street he learned that the team was to have a banquet that evening, in the course of which they would elect their captain for the next year. It occurred to him that it would be nice if James were elected, and it gave him pleasure to hear Trotwood and others say that his chance was as good as any one's.
He stayed up to hear the result of the election, which when it came was disappointing. James had missed the honor, less, apparently, because he was not good enough, than because some one else was considered even better. Harry was sorry, though he lost no sleep over it. When he saw James next morning, he spoke first of what was uppermost in his heart.
"James," he said impulsively, seizing his brother's hand and hanging on to it as he spoke; "I want to say a whole lot more about yesterday. I don't mind saying you're the greatest thing that ever came down the pike, and I'm proud to own you!" and more in the same vein, which James received with smiling protests and remarks of a self-depreciatory nature. But when Harry ended up "And I'm sorry as heck about the captaincy," his manner changed.
"Oh, that's all right," he said. His face became grave, his whole attitude seemed to add: "And we won't talk any more about that, please; it's a sore subject."
Harry's easy flow of talk stopped short, and a new feeling filled his mind. "Good Heavens, James cares, actually cares about the confounded thing," he thought, and dropped his brother's hand.
RUMBLINGS
"Please, sir, could you give me any dope for theNewsabout your coming back to coach the football team?" asked a timid voice from the doorway.
"No, heeler, no; I've already said I wouldn't give anything about that till I made up my mind, and I haven't yet." Thus James, more petulantly than was his wont, from his chair below the green-shaded lamp. The heeler, obviously a freshman, blinked disappointedly through the half-gloom for a few seconds and then moved to go.
"Wait a bit," said James, his good-humor restored; "I'm sorry, heeler. But when I tell you that you're the thirteenth person that has come in at that door since seven o'clock, and that I've got a hundred pages of economics to read for to-morrow, perhaps you'll understand why I'm a little snappy about being interrupted."
"That's all right," murmured the heeler vaguely. He was used to being snapped at by prominent seniors, but he was not used to being apologized to by them, and was not sure how he liked it.
"I tell you what I'll do, though," went on James. "I'll give you a locker notice that ought to have been put in long ago. Here." He reached for the heeler's notebook and wrote in it: "All senior members of the football squad are requested to remove their clothes from their lockers as the space will be wanted for spring practice." "There, that'll put you fifty words to the good, anyway," he said brightly, and the heeler went his way in peace.
James had conducted himself most creditably during his college course, and in the course of a few months would graduate if not exactly in a blaze of glory, at least in a very comfortable radiance. His standard of values had been a simple but satisfactory one; first, Football; second, Curriculum; third, Other Things. Any number of the steadier and worthier portion of the college world make this their creed, and find it works out extremely well. Inthe case of James, at least, such a standard gave a sane and well-balanced view of life. He took football with the most deathly seriousness, it is true, but only in its season, and its season, owing to the rigors of the New England climate, lasts hardly more than two months out of the twelve. During that time James practically hibernated when not actually on the football field, lived mainly on boiled rice and barley water, indulged in no amusements or vices, went about thoughtful and preoccupied, scarcely spoke even to his most intimate friends, studied only just enough to keep his stand above the danger mark and slept, as Harry rather vividly put it, "anywhere from thirty to forty hours out of the twenty-four." Out of the football season he was cheerful, cordial, loved the society of his fellows, smoked, drank in moderation, went to the theater, played cards, ate every kind of food he could lay his hands on and studied with a very faithful and intelligent interest. His classmates admired him during the football season, and loved him the rest of the year. Generally speaking, he conformed closely to his type; but his type was one of the best the college evolved.
After theNewsheeler left him on the evening in question he read economics uninterruptedly for about half an hour; then he took a cigarette from his case and lit it. The case was the gold one that Harry had brought him from Europe. He thought of Harry as he lay back in his chair after lighting the cigarette, and it is not too much to say that the thought of him impaired the pleasure of the first few puffs. Harry was, indeed, the chief, the only cloud on the horizon. It was too bad; he had begun so well. No one could have desired a more brilliant freshman year for him, what with his track work and his literary success and the excellent stand he maintained in his studies. And yet now, at about the middle of his sophomore year, he seemed to be going in any direction but that of fulfilling the promise of his first year. James could see for himself, and he had heard things.... Perhaps, after all, though, it was merely that he had begun too well; that his promise was fulfilled before it was fairly given. Many men graduated from college high in the esteem of their classmates without having distinguished themselves as much as Harry had in one year. Perhaps he was really going on exactly as well as before, onlypeople were just beginning to find out that he was only an American boy of nineteen, not Apollo and Hermes rolled into one. That was what James hoped; but it occurred to him that if such had been the case the idea would have come to him as a certainty, not as a hope.
Harry himself sauntered into the room before the cigarette was smoked out. Well, his outward appearance had not suffered, at any rate, was James' first thought. The slimness of his figure was unimpaired; his features retained their clear-cut lines of youth and innocence; his complexion shone with the glow of health, nothing else.
"Give me a cigarette, and hurry up about it, too," were his first words. "I've just been under a severe mental strain.... It will probably be the last one for many moons, too, if I start in training to-morrow, like a good little boy."
"Oh, of course; you've been to the call for track candidates," replied his brother, handing over the desired commodities. "Well, was it a good meeting?"
"Inspiring. Don't you see what a glow of enthusiasm I'm in? First Dimmock got up and opened his mouth. 'Fellows,' he said, 'I'm darned glad to see you all here to-night, but I wish there were more of you. I see fewer men out than usual, and we need more than ever this year, and I'll tell you why. We want to do better in the intercollegiates. We think we are strong enough for the dual meets, but we want to make a better show in the intercollegiates. But we've got plenty of good material here, and with that we ought to get together and work hard and show lots of the old Yale spirit, for we'll need it all in the intercollegiates.'
"Well, Dimmock is a good soul, if he has got a face like a boiled cod, and we cheered and clapped and patted him on the back. Then Macgrath took the floor. He said he thought we were going to have a good year, for there was plenty of material in sight, though he was sorry to see so few there to-night. He hoped we weren't forgetting what the Yale spirit was, because we particularly wanted to do well in the intercollegiates. He spoke of the new cinder track and the lengthening of the two-twenty yard straight-away, and ended with a hope that we would all get together and do Yale credit in the intercollegiates.
"Then McCullen, who as perhaps you know, is manager,got up. As he is a particular friend of yours I won't try to give an exact account of what he said. His main points, however, were the fewness of the candidates present, the probable wealth of good material in hand, the new cinder track and the desirability of doing well in the intercollegiates. Lastly, a man called Hodgman, or Hodgson, or something, who was captain back in the eighties somewhere, was introduced. He spoke first of the new cinder track and straight-away, from which he lightly and gracefully went on to congratulating the team on having so much good material this year—though he saw fewer there to-night than he had expected. He closed with a touching peroration in which he intimated that the track team had in general come off well in regard to Harvard and Princeton, and what was wanted now was a little better showing against the other universities in the intercollegiates.... Oh, it was a glorious meeting!"
James fully appreciated the humor of this narrative, as the sympathetic twinkle in his eye betrayed, but he merely observed after Harry had finished:
"Well, that's true; they ought to do better in the intercollegiates. There's a good deal of feeling about it among the graduates, too, I believe."
"Oh, it'strueenough." Harry, who felt the heat of the room, opened the window and lay down at full length on the window-seat, directly in the draught. "I'd take the word of those four noble, strapping, true-hearted men for it any day in the year. Only—only—oh, heck! Why should I have to sit up and listen to those boobs spend an hour in telling me that one thing? And what the devil do I care about it anyway, if it's the truest thing that ever happened?"
"Well, I care about it, though I'm no good at track and not a member of the team," commented James.
"Perhaps if you were on it you wouldn't care quite so much.—Well, I'll train and I'll practise regularly, not because I want Yale to win the intercollegiates, but because I think it's good for me. It is good for the figure, and I'd rather have my muscles hard than soft."
"Well, it comes to the same thing, if you keep to it, and don't go gassing to the track people about your reasons."
"I shall go gassing to every human being I've a mind to.—And I'll tell you one thing there's going to be troubleabout, if they try to use coercion, or the Yale spirit gag. That's about the Easter vacation; there's some talk of making the track people stay here and train. I have other plans for Easter."
"What are they?—For Heaven's sake, shut that window! What a fool you are, lying in a draught like that, with the track season beginning."
"James, you are every bit as bad as any of them, at heart," said Harry, shutting the window. "You wouldn't give a continental if I caught pneumonia and died in frightful agony, except for its cutting the university of a possible place in the intercollegiates.—Why, I'm going down to the Trotwoods' place in North Carolina. Trotty's going to have a large and brilliant house-party. Beatrice is going; he met her in New York not long ago and took a great shine to her." For Beatrice, in the company of Aunt Miriam, was paying a visit to the country of her dreams.
"What?" said James, pricking up his ears. "Beatrice going? Why hasn't Trotty asked me?"
"Didn't dare, I suppose," said Harry indifferently. "I'll make him, though, if you like. That's the way the King's visits are arranged; he says he'd like to visit some distinguished subject, and a third party tells the distinguished subject, who asks the King, who accepts. It's complicated, but it gets there in the end."
James did not seem particularly interested in points of etiquette in royal households.
"What do you make out of this business of the Carsons?" he asked.
"What business?"
"Hadn't you heard? Aunt C. told me about it when I was there last Sunday. Beatrice's mother has made up her mind to sue for a divorce, and Beatrice has quarreled with her about it."
"Good Lord! No, I hadn't heard a thing. I knew what the father was, of course.... Has anything in particular happened?"
"Apparently, yes. Aunt C. can tell you more exactly than I. Beatrice has confided the whole thing to her—they're thick as thieves already; she gets on better with her than with Aunt Miriam, even. It seems that the husband, Lord Archibald, is on to the fact that his wife hashad a good deal of money to spend lately; Uncle Giles having given her a lot since he got that—"
"Yes, I know. Go on."
"Well, that's about the whole thing. He's been bullying her, making her give it up to him ... and one thing and another, till she got desperate, and decided to try for a complete divorce. There's plenty of ground, even for English law ... but Beatrice's idea is that there's no need. Of course, it will mean a lot of scandal. She says that if she had been there to deal with him there would have been no talk about it, and that, at worst, a separation would have been all that was necessary."
"Poor Lady Archie! She has had a tough time; I shall be glad to see her well out of it. A divorce—! Well, she has more sense than I gave her credit for."
"It seems to me that Beatrice is quite right," said James, a trifle stiffly. "I should have thought that a divorce was the thing most to be avoided. It's not like an American divorce.... I understand her point very well."
Harry did not reply to this; he simply growled—made a curious sound in the bottom of his throat. It amounted to a polite way of saying "Nonsense!" Apparently James accepted the implied rebuke, for he said no more on the subject. His brother also was silent for some time and gazed thoughtfully out on the lights of the Campus. "I've got troubles of my own, James," he said presently. "Have you heard anything about last night yet?"
"Last night? No; what?"
"Well, you've heard of Junius LeGrand, in our class?"
"The actress? Yes."
"Well, he's become rather a power in the class; not only he is making straight for the Dramat. presidency, but he's more or less the center of a certain clique; the social register, monogrammed cigarettes, champagne-every-night and abroad-every-summer type; the worst of it, that is. Well, I had a dreadful scene with him last night. I got a thrill and called him names, and he didn't like it."
"What happened?"
"There was a whole bunch of us sitting round at Mory's, and I was talking partly in French, as I usually do when—when mildly excited, and referred to him as a 'petite ordure.' Of course that isn't a pretty thing to call a person, even in French, and I probably shouldn't have saidit if I hadn't been drinking. I meant it all, though, and was willing to stand by it, so when he got mad I called him other and worse things, in English. He wasn't tight, but he was pretty furious by that time, and there'd have been a free fight if people hadn't held us apart."
"That's pretty poor, Harry," said James gravely, after a moment's consideration. "I don't mean your hating LeGrand—though you needn't have actually come to quarreling with him. But your being tight and he not puts you in the wrong right off.—What's all this about your drinking, anyway?"
"I don't, so you could notice it.... That was the first time I ever got carried beyond myself, except about once—or twice. I'm not fond of the stuff; I only drink when I want to be cheered up."
"That's bad, too; it's much worse to drink when you're in bad spirits than when you're in good," said James, with a wisdom beyond his experience.
"After I've drunk, the good spirits are in me," retorted Harry, with rather savage humor.
"It's no joking matter. Harry, will you cut it out entirely, if I ask you to?"
"You'll have to do some tall asking, I'm afraid.—I don't like you much when you preach, James. I came here for sympathy, not sermons."
"You won't get me to sympathize with your making a beast of yourself."
"James, you know perfectly well you were tight as a tick at the football banquet in Boston last fall."
"I'm no paragon, I admit."
"You say that as if you thought you were, and expected me to say so. No, you're right—you're not. There!"
James' humor suddenly changed. His grave face relaxed into a smile, he rose from his chair and wandered to the end of the room and back to the window-seat.
"All right, we'll leave it at that; I'm not." He stood for a moment hands in pockets, smiling down at his brother. "It's nice to find one point we can agree on, anyway.... I won't bother you. After all, I suppose there's not much danger."
"No ... I don't think I should ever really get to like the stuff." But Harry did not smile and fall in with his brother's mood; he had too much on his mind still. "Ihaven't told you the most disagreeable part of it," he went on. "Something happened to-day that made me sorry I had made a fool of myself. Shep McGee came to me to-day and said that he'd heard about our littlecoup de théâtre, and that he was sorry, but being one of Junius' particular friends he couldn't be friendly with me any more unless I apologized. I was sorry, because I've always liked Shep and got on very well with him."
"What did you say?"
"Oh, of course I was pretty peeved, and I messed it up still further. I told him I was glad he'd spoken, because henceforth my acquaintance would not be recruited conspicuously from Junius' special friends. I said that, strange as it might seem, I felt myself able to hand him, Shep, over to Junius' complete possession without a tear. I added that I thought he would find it safer in the future to choose his friends exclusively from the cause of Christ, and suggested that he might try to convert Junius to the same august organization...."
Some explanation may be necessary to show why this remark outraged James' feelings to the extent it did. The organization to which Harry referred was Dwight Hall, the college home of the Y. M. C. A., Bible study classes, city and foreign mission work, in all of which branches of religious and semi-religious activity many of the worthiest undergraduates interest themselves. James particularly admired the organization and those who worked in it; he would have gone in for some department of its work himself had he possessed the qualities of a religious leader. Most of his best friends were Dwight Hall workers; the senior society to which he belonged was notorious for taking many of them into its fold yearly—so much so, indeed, that it has become a popular myth that an underground passage exists between Dwight Hall and the society hall.
Consequently, Harry's contemptuous epithet, together with the tone in which he uttered it was quite enough to shock and pain James very much. But what put him out even more was the thought that Harry had said this to Shep McGee. The latter was one of the most respected men in Harry's class, and James had happened to take a particular fancy to him. He rather wondered at McGee's making a friend of such a person as LeGrand, but he did not stop to think about that now.
"Harry," said he in a sharp, dry voice, "I think that's the rottenest remark I ever heard you or any one else make—if you used that expression to McGee."
"I did."
"I never thought you were capable of saying such a rotten thing, and I don't mind your knowing what I think of it. Are you going to apologize to McGee?"
"No."
"Well, I shall. If I can't apologize on your behalf, at least I can apologize for being your brother! What the devil do you mean by saying such a thing, in cold blood, to such a man? If you don't believe in the work yourself, can't you let other people believe in it? What do you believe in, anyway? Do you call yourself a Christian? Do you call yourself a gentleman? Do you flatter yourself that McGee isn't a hundred times a better man than you are?"
"Rumblings from the underground passage." This remark, given with a cold, hard little smile, in which there was no geniality, no humor, even of a mistaken nature, amounted to a direct insult. Any reference made to a Yale man about his senior society by an outsider, be it a brother or any one else, is looked upon as a breach of etiquette—was at that time, at any rate. Harry's remark was worse than that; it was a rather cowardly thrust, for he was insulting a thing that James, by reason of the secrecy to which he was bound, could not defend.
James did not reply; he simply grabbed up a hat and flung himself out of the room. Harry listened to his footsteps retreating down the stairs with a sinking heart; all his anger, all his resentment ebbed with them, and by the time they had died away there was nothing left but hopeless, repentant wretchedness. In the last twenty-four hours he had made a public disgrace of himself, he had fallen out with one of his best friends, and he had wounded the feelings of the last person on earth he wanted to hurt. And all because of his asinine convictions, because he thought his ideals were a little higher than other men's, his honesty a little more impeccable than theirs.
He got up and left the room, cursing himself for a fool, cursing the fate that had brought him to this pass, cursing Dwight Hall, the senior societies, the university that harbored them, the school, the country that had put ideasinto his head. But chiefest of all he cursed Junius LeGrand....
But that did not do any good.
The next morning he wrote and posted a note of apology to James:—
Dear James—I am sorry about last night—really, I am. I will try not to make such an ass of myself again."Harry."
Dear James—I am sorry about last night—really, I am. I will try not to make such an ass of myself again.
"Harry."
The same evening he received an answer, also through the mail. It was simply a post-card bearing the words: