“Well, now, Judge Dink, what is your learned opinion on this situation? Here is the dickens to pay; three-fourths the college lined up against you fellows, and a public mass meeting coming. Jim Hunter here believes in sitting back and letting the storm blow over; Bob, who of course can regulate it all, wants to double the membership and meet some objections. Now what do you say? Mr. Stover has the floor. My daughter will please come to order.”
Jean Story abruptly turned from the piano, where her fingers had been absentmindedly running over the keys.
“Frankly, I haven’t made up my mind just yet,” said Stover. “There are a great many sides to it. I’ve listened to a good many opinions, but haven’t yet chosen mine. Everyone is talking about the effect on the college, but what has impressed me most is the effect on the sophomore society men themselves. If the outsiders only knew the danger and handicap they are to us!”
“Hello,” said the Judge, shifting with a little interest.
“What do you mean?” said Hunter aggressively.
“I mean we are the ones who are limited, who are liable to miss the big opportunities of college life. We have got into the habit, under the pretense of good fellowship, of herding together.”
“Why shouldn’t we?” persisted Hunter.
“Because we shut ourselves up, withdraw from the big life of the college, know only our own kind, the kind we’ll know all our life; surrender our imagination. We represent only a social idea, a good time, good friends, good figureheads on the different machines of the college. But we miss the big chance—to go out, to mingle with everyone, to educate ourselves by knowing opposite lives, fellows who see things as we never have seen them, who are going back to a life a thousand miles away from what we will lead.” He expressed himself badly, and, realizing it, said impatiently: “Here, what I mean is this. It’s not my idea, it’s Brockhurst’s, it’s Tom Regan’s. The biggest thing we can do is to reflect the nation, to be the inspiration of the democracy of the country, to be alive to the fight among the people for real political independence. We ought to get a great vision when we come up here, as young men, of the bigness of our country, of the privilege of fighting out its political freedom, of what American manhood means in the towns of Georgia and Texas, in the little manufacturing cities of New England, in the great West, and in the small homes of the big cities. We ought to really know one another, meet, discuss, respect each other’s point of view, independence—odd ways if you wish. We don’t do it. We did once—we don’t now. Princeton doesn’t do it, Harvard doesn’t do it. We’re over-organized away from the vital thing—the knowledge of ourselves.”
“Then you’d abolish the sophomore societies?” said Hunter, crowding him to the wall.
“I don’t know. Sometimes I’ve felt it’s the system that is wrong,” said Stover frankly. “Lately, I’ve changed my mind. I think we can do what we want—at least I know I’ve gone out and met whom I wanted to without my being in a sophomore society making the slightest difference. I say I don’t know where the trouble is; whether the whole social system here and elsewhere is the cause or the effect. It may be that it is the whole development of America that has changed our college life. I don’t know; those questions are too big for me to work out. But I know one thing, that my own ideas of what I want here have taken a back somersault, and that I’m going out of here knowing everything I can of every man in the class.” Suddenly he remembered Hunter’s opposition, and turning, concluded: “One thing more; if ever I make up my mind that the sophomore society system or any other system ought to be abolished, I’ll stand out and say so.”
When he had finished, his classmates began talking all at once, Hunter and Bain in bitter opposition, Bob Story in warm defense, Hungerford, in his big-souled way, coming ponderously to his assistance.
Stover withdrew from the conversation. He glanced at Jean Story, wondering if she had understood the reason of his return, and that he had spoken for her ears alone. She was still at the piano, one hand resting on the keyboard, looking at him with the same serious, half-troubled expression in her large eyes. He made an excuse to leave, and for the second that he stood by her, he looked into her eyes boldly, with even a little bravado, as though to ask:
“Do you understand?”
But the young girl, without speaking, nodded her head slightly, continuing to look at him with her wistful, a little wounded glance.
XIX
It was only a little after nine. He had left in the company of Joe Hungerford, who had ostensibly taken the opportunity of going with him.
“I say, Dink,” he began directly, in the blustering, full-mouthed way he had when excited, “I say bully for you. Lord, I liked to hear you talk out.”
“It’s all simple enough,” said Stover, surprised at the other’s enthusiasm. “I suppose I wouldn’t have said all I did if it hadn’t been for Hunter.”
“Oh, Jim’s a damned hard-shell from way back,” said Hungerford good-humoredly, “never mind him. I say though, Dink, you really have been going round, haven’t you, breaking through the lines?”
“Yes, I have.”
“I wish you’d take me around with you some time,” said Hungerford enviously.
“Why the deuce don’t you break in yourself?”
“It doesn’t come natural, Dink,” said the inheritor of millions regretfully. “I never went through boarding-school like you fellows. By George, it’s just what I want, what I hoped for here! and, damn it, what I’m not getting!”
“You know, Joe,” said Dink suddenly, “there wouldn’t be any society problem if fellows that felt the way you and I do
