However, the conflict did not break out until the close of the season. The team, under the resolute leadership of Captain Dudley, fought its way to one of those almost miraculous successes which is not characteristic of the Yale system as it is the result of the inspiring guidance of some one extraordinary personality.
Regan went from guard to tackle, and Stover, back at his natural position of end, developed the promise of freshman year, acclaimed as the All-American end of the year. Still the possibility of Regan’s challenge for the captaincy returned constantly to his mind, for about the big tackle was always a feeling of confidence, of rugged, immovable determination that perhaps in its steadying influence had built up the team more than his own individual brilliancy. Dink, despite himself, felt the force of these masterful qualities, acknowledging them even as, to his displeasure, he felt a rising jealousy; for at the bottom he was drawn more and more to Regan as he was drawn to no other man.
About a month after the triumphant close of the football season, then, Stover, in the usual course of a thoroughly uneventful morning, rose as rebelliously late as usual, bolted his breakfast, and rushed to chapel. He was humanly elated with what the season had brought, a fame which had gone the rounds of the press of the country for unflinching courage and cold head-work, but, more than that, he was pleasantly satisfied with the difficult modesty with which he bore his honors. For he was modest. He had sworn to himself he would be, and he was. He had allowed it to make no difference in his relations with the rest of the class. If anything, he was more careful to distribute the cordiality of his smile and the good-natured “How are you?” to all alike without the slightest distinction.
“How are you, Bill?” he said to Swazey, the strange unknown grind who sat beside him. He called him by his first name consciously, though he knew him no more than this slight daily contact, because he wished to emphasize the comradeship and democracy of Yale, of which he was a leader. “Feelin’ fine this morning, old gazabo?”
“How are you?” said Swazey gratefully.
“Tough lesson they soaked us, didn’t they?”
“It was a tough one.”
“Suppose that didn’t bother you, though, you old valedictorian.”
“Oh, yes, it did.”
Stover, settling comfortably in his seat, nodded genially to the right and left.
“I say, Dink.”
“Hello, what is it?”
“Drop in on me some night.”
“What?” said Stover surprised.
“Come round and have a chat sometime,” said Swazey, in a thoroughly natural way.
“Why, sure; like to,” said Stover bluffly, which, of course was the only thing to say.
“Tonight?”
“Sorry; I’m busy tonight,” said Stover. Swazey, of course, being a grind, did not realize the abhorrent, almost sacrilegious, social break he was making in inviting him on his society evening.
“Tomorrow, then?”
“Why, yes; tomorrow.”
“I haven’t been very sociable in not asking you before,” said Swazey, in magnificent incomprehension, “but I’d really like to have you.”
“Why, thankee.”
Stover, entrapped, received the invitation with perfect gravity, although resolved to find some excuse.
But the next day, thinking it over, he said to himself that it really was his duty, and, reflecting how pleased Swazey would be to receive a call from one of his importance, he determined to give him that pleasure. Setting out after supper, he met Bob Story.
“Whither away?” said Story, stopping.
“I’m going to drop in on a fellow called Swazey,” said Stover, a little conscious of the virtue of this act. “I sit next to him in chapel. He’s a good deal of a grind, but he asked me around, and I thought I’d go. You know—the fellow in our row.”
“That’s very good of you,” said Story, with a smile which he remembered after.
Stover felt so himself. Still, he had the democracy of Yale to preserve, and it was his duty. He went swinging on his way with that warm, glowing, physical delight that, fortunately, the slightest virtuous action is capable of arousing.
With Nathaniel Pike, a classmate, Swazey roomed in Divinity Hall, where, attracted by the cheapness of the rooms, a few of the college had been able to find quarters.
“Queer place,” thought Dink to himself, eyeing a few of the divinity students who went slipping by him. “Wonder what the deuce I can talk to him about. Oh, well, I won’t have to stay long.”
Swazey, of course, being outside the current of college heroes, could have but a limited view. He found the door at the end of the long corridor and thundered his knock, as a giant announces himself.
“Come in if you’re good-looking!” said a piping voice.
Stover entered with strongly accentuated good fellowship, giving his hand with the politician’s cordiality.
“How are you, Nat? How are you, Bill?”
He ensconced himself in the generous armchair, which bore the trace of many masters, accepted a cigar and said, to put his hosts at their ease:
“Bully quarters you’ve got here. Blame sight more room than I’ve got.”
Pike, cap on, a pad under his arm, apologized for going.
“Awful sorry, Stover; darned inhospitable. This infernal News grind. Hope y’will be sociable and stay till I get back.”
“How are you making out?” said Stover, in an encouraging, generous way.
Pike scratched his ear, a large, loose ear, wrinkling up his long, pointed nose in a grimace, as he answered:
“Danged if I don’t think I’m going to miss out again.”
“You were in the first competition?” said Stover, surprised—for one trial was usually considered equivalent to a thousand years off the purgatory account.
“Yep, but I
