Stover stopped McNab, who was hurrying past.
“I say, Dopey, is it true?”
“Sure thing.”
“How’d it happen?”
“Don’t know.”
Gimbel came up with the full news.
“The President gave them a certain time, you remember, to submit a plan of reform. They reported they couldn’t agree, so he called the committee together and said:
“ ‘Well, gentlemen, I gave you the opportunity to conform to public sentiment, you haven’t been able to do it, you are now abolished.’ ”
“Who’d have thought it!”
“You don’t say so!”
“Abolished!”
“I know you’re glad, Dink, old man,” said Gimbel, shaking his hand with a confidential look. “We all know how you stood.”
“It’s for the best,” said Stover slowly; then he added: “But Gimbel, the fight’s over; the big thing now is for the class to get together—be careful how you fellows take it.”
Strangely enough, in the hour of defeat the instinct of caste came back to him—he was again the sophomore society man. He walked over to his rooms with a curious feeling of resentment at the rejoicing on the campus, where the news was being shouted from window to window. Bob Story, leaving the fence, came over and took him by the arm.
“Dink, old fellow, I’ve been waiting to see you.”
“I’ve just heard the news,” said Stover, when they reached his room.
“That’s not what I came about,” said Story, “though it fits in all the better. Dink, you won’t mind our clearing up a little past history?”
“I wish you would, Bob,” said Stover earnestly. “I know you never saw things my way.”
“No, I didn’t. I don’t say you were wrong. It was a question of different temperaments. You did a braver thing than I would have done—”
“Oh, I say—”
“Yes, I mean it. Of course I think it was all a rotten mistake, and that if you’d talked the matter out as you’ve done with me, Le Baron and Reynolds would have seen your side.”
“Perhaps so.”
“I felt that Reynolds had acted like an ass, and you very naturally had lost your temper—the result being to put the society in the position as a society of dictating a man’s friendships. I don’t believe that was justified.”
“Indirectly, Bob, it worked out that way.”
“There I believe you’re right, Dink,” said Story openly. “I’ve come to see it, and I admit it now. I’m glad the system has gone. I’m for the best here. Now, Dink,”—he hesitated a moment—“I know you’ve been through a rotten time; you’ve felt everyone was against you unjustly. I know all that, and I know you’ve got hold of yourself again.”
“That’s true.”
“What I want to talk over with you now is this. Don’t let what has passed keep you away from anyone in the class.”
“But, Bob,” said Dink, amazed, “how can I help it? The soph crowd must be down on me—particularly now.”
“Rats, they all know pretty well the circumstances, and they all respect your nerve, that’s honest. We like a good fighter up here. Now, Dink, more than ever, we need a real leader here to bring us together again. Don’t leave the field to Bain and Hunter—they’re all right in their way, but they can’t see things in a big way. Go right out where you’ve always gone, twice the man you used to be, and make us all follow you. Don’t make apologies for what you did—go out as though you were proud of it, and the whole bunch will rise up and follow you.”
“I get what you mean,” said Stover solemnly. “That’s horse sense, Bob—you’ve always got that. I wish you’d said it before.”
“I wish I had.”
Stover looked at him wondering, but not daring to ask if someone else had prompted him to the act.
“It’s strange you came just now, Bob,” he said. “You’ve put words in my mouth that were already there. I’ve just been talking over a scheme that I think’s a big idea. It’s Brockhurst’s.”
He detailed the plan and his own suggestion. Story was enthusiastic. They talked at length, drawing up a list of possible members, with the enthusiasm of pioneers.
“I say, Dink, there’s one thing more,” said Bob, as he started to go. “I’ve been thinking a lot lately about things here, and what I want for the next two years—this is about ended. I’d like to propose something to you.”
“Propose it.”
“What do you say to you and me, Joe Hungerford, and Tom Regan, all rooming together another year?”
“Tom?” said Stover, surprised a moment. “The very thing if he’d do it.”
“The four of us are all different enough to make just the combination we need. I’m tired of bunking alone. I want to rub up against someone else.”
“There’s nothing I could have thought of better, Bob. You’re right, we four ought to be friends—real friends—and stand together. Here’s my hand on it.”
“Bully. I’ve spoken to Joe, and he’s going to see Regan. I say, Dink, drop in soon.”
“Sure thing.”
“I mean at the house.”
“Oh, yes.” A little constraint came to him, and then a flush of boyish hope. “I’m coming round.”
“Because—the family have been wondering.”
When Bob had gone, Stover stood a long while gazing at the excited groups about the fence, retailing the all-important news.
“By George, I’ll do it,” he said at last. “I’ll not leave it to Tommy Bain or Jim Hunter. It may be a fight, but I’m going out to lead because I can do it, and because I believe in the right things.” Then he thought over all the incidents of Bob’s visit, and he fell into a musing state with sudden wild jumps of the imagination. “I wonder—did he come of his own accord—I wonder if she knew!”
With one of his old-time sudden resolves, he went that very night to the Storys’. The struggle he had come through in victory showed in a new, abrupt self-confidence. He felt older by a year than at his last visit.
Jean Story was at the piano, Jim Hunter on the wide seat beside her, turning over the leaves of
