“Wait a moment—let me understand the thing,” said Stover, absolutely dumbfounded. Reynolds’s purely unintentional false start had left him cold with anger. “Am I to understand that you have come here to inform me that you do not approve of the friends I’ve been making?”
“Hold up,” said Le Baron.
“No, let’s have it straight. That’s what I want, too,” he said quickly, facing Reynolds. “You criticize the crowd I’m going with, and you want me to chuck them. That’s it in plain English, isn’t it?”
A little flush showed on Reynolds’s face. He, too, felt the physical superiority in Stover, and the antagonism thereof, and, being provoked, he answered more shortly than he meant to:
“Let it go at that.”
“Is that right?” said Stover, turning to Le Baron.
“Now, look here, Dink, there’s no use in getting hot about this,” said Le Baron uneasily. “No one’s forcing anything on you. We are here as your friends, telling you what we believe is for your own good.”
“So you think if I go on identifying myself with the crowd I’m with that I may ‘queer’ myself?”
“That’s rather strong.”
“Why not have it out?”
“This is true,” said Le Baron, “that the men in your own crowd don’t understand your cutting loose from them, and that no one can make out why you’ve taken up with the crowd you have.”
The explanation which might have cleared matters was forgotten by Stover in the wound to his vanity.
“You haven’t answered my question.”
“Well, Dink, to be honest,” said Le Baron, “if you keep on deliberately, there is more than a chance of—”
“Of queering myself?”
“Yes.”
“Being regarded as a sort of wild man, and missing out on a senior election.”
“That’s what we want to prevent,” said Le Baron, believing he saw a reasonable excuse. “You’ve got everything in your hands, Stover, don’t waste your time—”
“One moment.”
Stover, putting out his hand, interrupted him. He locked his hands behind his back, twisting them in physical pain, staring out the window, unable to meet the suddenness of the situation.
“You’ve been quite frank,” he said, when he was able to speak. “You have not come to me to dictate who should be my friends here, though that’s perhaps a quibble, but as members of my sophomore society you have come to advise me against what might queer me. I understand. Well, gentlemen, you absolutely amaze me. I didn’t believe it possible. I’ll think it over.”
He looked at them with a quick nod, intimating that there was nothing more to be discussed. Reynolds, saying something under his breath, sprang up. Le Baron, feeling that the interview had been a blunder from the first, said suddenly:
“Benny, see here; let me have a moment’s talk with Dink.”
“Quite useless, Hugh,” said Stover, in the same controlled voice. “There’s nothing more to be said. You have your point of view, I have mine. I understand. There’s no pressure being put on me, only, if I am to go on choosing my friends as I have—I do it at my own risk. I’ve listened to you. I don’t know what I shall answer. That’s all. Good night.”
Reynolds went out directly, Le Baron slowly, with much hesitation, seeking some opportunity to remain, with a last uneasy glance.
When Stover was left to himself, his first sensation was of absolute amazement. He, the big man of the class, confident in the security of his position, had suddenly tripped against an obstruction, and been made to feel his limitations.
“By Heavens! If anyone would have told me, I wouldn’t have believed it—the fools!”
The full realization of the pressure that had been exerted on him did not yet come to him. He was annoyed, as some wild animal at the first touch of a rope that seems only to check him.
He moved about the room, tossing back his hair impatiently.
“That’s what Hungerford was trying to hint to me,” he said. “So my conduct has been under fire. What I do is a subject of criticism because I’ve gone out of the beaten way, done something they don’t understand—the precious idiots!” Then he remembered Reynolds, and his anger began to rise. “The little squirt, the impudent little scribbler, to come and tell me what I should or shouldn’t do! How the devil did I ever keep my temper? Who is he anyhow? I’ll give him an answer!”
All at once he perceived the full extent of the situation, and what a defiance would mean to those leaders in the class above, men marked for Skull and Bones, the society to which he aspired.
“No pressure!” he said aloud, with a grim laugh, “Oh, no! no pressure at all! Advice only—take it or leave it, but the consequences are on your head. By Heavens, I wouldn’t have believed it.” It hurt him, it hurt him acutely, that he, who had won his way to leadership, should have sat and listened to those who were the masters of his success.
“Hold up, hold up, Dink Stover,” he said, all at once. “This is serious—a damn sight more serious than you thought. It’s up to you. What are you going to do about it?”
All at once the temper that always lay close to his skin, uncontrollable and violent, broke out.
“By Heavens—and I stood for it—I stood there quietly and listened, and never said a word! But I didn’t realize it—no, I didn’t realize it. Yes, but he won’t understand it, that damned little whippersnapper of a Reynolds; he’ll think I’ve kowtowed. He will, will he? We’ll see! By Heavens, that’s what their society game means, does it! Thank Heaven, I didn’t argue with them. At least I didn’t do that.”
He strode over quickly, and seizing his cap clapped it on his head, and stopped.
“Now or never,” he said, between his teeth.
He went out slamming the door; and as he went, furiously, all the anger and humiliation blazed up in a fierce revolt—he, Dink, Dink Stover, had
