“Well, there’s this to it,” said Regan ruminatively, “It’s an opportunity I won’t always have.”
“What the deuce do you mean?”
“The opportunity to meet the fellow who gets the grind of life—to understand what he thinks of himself, and especially what he thinks of those above him. I won’t have many more chances to see him on the ground floor, and some day I’ve got to know him well enough to convince him. See? By the way, it would be a good college course for a lot of you fellows if you got in touch with the real thing also.”
“Are you a socialist?” said Stover, who vaguely associated the term with dynamite and destruction.
“I may be, but I don’t know it.”
“I say, Tom, do you go in for debating and all that sort of thing?”
“You bet I do; but it comes hard as hen’s teeth.”
Stover, who had waited for an opportunity to volunteer advice, finding no opening, resolved to take the dilemma by the horns.
“Tom, I think you’re wrong about one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“Holding aloof so much.”
“Particularly what?”
“I’m thinking about sophomore societies, for one thing. Why the deuce don’t you give the fellows a chance to help you?”
“Oh, you mean the dinky little bunch that came around to call on me,” said Regan thoughtfully.
“Yes. Now, why turn them out?”
“Why, they bored me, and, besides, I haven’t time for anything like that. There are too many big things here.”
“They can help you like the mischief, now and afterward.”
“Thanks; I’ll help myself. Besides, I don’t want to get their point of view.”
“Why not?”
“Too limited.”
“Have you been talking to Gimbel?” said Stover, wondering.
“Gimbel? No; why?”
“Because he is organizing the class against them.”
“That doesn’t interest me, either.”
“What do you make of Gimbel?”
“Gimbel’s all right; a good politician.”
“Is he sincere?”
“Everyone’s sincere.”
“You mean everyone’s convinced of his own sincerity.”
“Sure; easiest person in the world to convince.”
Stover laughed a little consciously, wondering for a brief moment if the remark could be directed at him. Curiously enough, the more the blunt antagonism of Regan impressed him, the more he was reassured that the man was too radical ever to challenge his leadership. He rose to go, his conscience satisfied by the halfhearted appeal he had made.
“I say, Dink,” said Regan, laying his huge paw on his shoulder, “don’t get your head turned by this social business.”
“Heavens, no!”
“ ’Cause there’s some real stuff in you, boy, and some day it’s coming out. Thanks, by the way, for wanting to make me a society favorite.”
Dink left with a curious mixture of emotions. Regan always had an ascendency over him he could not explain. It irritated him that he could not shake it off, and yet he was genuinely chained to the man.
“Why the deuce did Le Baron put that in my head?” he said to himself, for the tenth time. “If Regan beats me out for captain it’ll only be because he’s older and has got a certain way about him. Well, I suppose if I’m to be captain I’ve got to close up more; I can’t go cutting up like a kid. I’ve got to be older.”
He resolved to be more dignified, more melancholy, shorter of speech, and consistent in gravity. For the first time he felt what it meant to calculate his chances. Before, everything had come to him easily. He had missed the struggle and the heartburnings. Now, suddenly, a shadow had fallen across the open road, the shadow of one whom he had regarded as a sort of protégé. He had thoughts of which he was ashamed, for at the bottom he was glad that Regan would not be of a sophomore society—that that advantage would be denied him; and, a little guiltily, he wondered if he had tried as hard as he might have to show him the opportunity.
“If they ever know him as I do,” he said, with a generous revulsion, “he’ll be the biggest thing in the class.” York Street and the busy windows of Pierson Hall came into his vision. A group of sophomores, ending their tour of visits, passed him, saluting him cordially. He thought all at once, with a sharp rebellion, how much freer Regan was, with his own set purpose, than he under the tutelage of Le Baron.
“I wonder what I’d do if no darn sophomore societies existed,” he said to himself thoughtfully. And then, going up the stairs to his room, he said to McCarthy as he entered: “I guess, after all, I’ll get out and slave again this spring—might as well heel the crew. I’m just varsity material—that’s all!”
XII
The first weeks of the competition for the crew were not exacting, and consisted mostly of eliminating processes. Stover had consequently still enough leisure to gravitate naturally into that necessity of running into debt which comes to every youth who has just won the privilege of a yearly allowance; the same being solemnly understood to cover all the secret and hidden needs of the flesh as well as those that are outwardly exposed to the admiration of the multitude.
Now, the lure of personal adornment and the charm of violent neckties and outrageous vests had come to him naturally, as such things come, shortly after the measles, under the educating influence of a hopeless passion which had passed but had left its handiwork.
About a week after the opening of the term, Stover was drifting down Chapel Street in the company of Hungerford and McCarthy, when, in the window of the most predatory haberdasher’s, he suddenly was fascinated by the most beautiful thing he had ever seen adorning a window. A tinge of masculine modesty prevented his remaining in struck admiration before it, especially in the presence of McCarthy and Hungerford, whose souls could rest content in jerseys and sweaters; but half an hour later, slipping away, he returned, fascinated. Chance had been kind to him. It was still there, the
