This new supremacy brought with it several differences of opinion. When the question of the football captaincy had come up he did not tell her of his decision, afraid of the ambition he knew was strong in her for his career.
When he saw her the next night, Bob had already brought the news and the reason. She received him with great distance, and for the first time showed a little cruelty in her complete ignoring of his presence.
“You are angry at me,” he said, when finally he had succeeded in finding her alone.
“Yes, I am,” she said point blank. “Why didn’t you tell me what you were planning?”
“I didn’t dare,” he said frankly. “You wouldn’t have approved.”
“Of course I wouldn’t. It was ridiculous. Why shouldn’t you be the captain?”
“There were reasons,” he said seriously. “I should not have had a united team back of me—oh, I know it.”
“Absurd,” she said with some heat. “You should have gone out and made them follow you. Really, it’s too absurd, renouncing everything. Here’s the Junior Prom; everyone says you would have led the class if you’d have stood for it.”
“Yes, and it’s just because a lot of fellows thought they knew my whole game of democracy that I wouldn’t stand for it.”
She grew quite angry. He had never seen her so stirred.
“Stuff and nonsense. What do you care for their opinion? You should be captain and chairman of the Prom, but you renounce everything—you seem to delight in it. It’s too absurd; it’s ridiculous. It’s like Don Quixote riding around.”
He was hurt at this, and his face showed it.
“It’s something to be able to refuse what others are grabbing for,” he said shortly. “But all you seem to care for is the name.”
The flash that was in his eyes surprised her, and the sudden stern note in his voice that she had never heard before brought her to a quick realization of how she must have wounded him. Her manner changed. She became very gentle, and before he went she said hurriedly:
“Forgive me. You were right, and I was very petty.”
But though he had shown his independence of her ambitions for him, and gained thereby, at heart he had a foolish longing, a senseless dream of winning out on Tap Day—just for the estimation he knew she held of that honor. And, wishing this ardently, he was influenced by it. There were questions about the senior societies that he had not put to himself honestly, as he had in the case of the sophomore. He knew they were way back in his mind, claiming to be met, but, thinking of Jean, he said to himself evasively again and again:
“Suppose there are bad features. I’ve done enough to show my nerve. No one can question that!”
With the passing of the winter, and the return to college in the pleasant month of April, the final, all-absorbing Tap Day loomed over them only six weeks away. It was not a particularly agreeable period. The contending ambitions were too keen, too conflicting, for the maintenance of the old spirit of comradeship. The groups again defined themselves, and the “lame ducks,” in the hopes of being noticed, assiduously cultivated the society of what are called “the big men.”
One afternoon in the first week in April, as Dink was returning from the gymnasium, he was suddenly called to from the street. Chris Schley and Troutman, in a two-seated rig, were hallooing:
“Hello there, Dink.”
“Come for a ride.”
“Jump in—join us.”
The two had never been of his intimates, belonging to a New York crowd, who were spoken of for Keys. He hesitated, but as he was free he considered:
“What’s the game?”
“We’re out for a spin towards the shore. Tommy Bain and Stone were going but had to drop out. Come along. We might get a shore supper, and toddle back by moonlight.”
“I’ve got to be here by seven,” said Dink doubtfully.
“Oh, well, come on; we’ll make it just a drive.”
“Fine.”
He sprang into the front seat, and they started off in the young, tingling air. Troutman, at the reins, was decidedly unfamiliar with their uses, and, at a fervent plea from Schley, Stover assumed control. Since freshman year the three had been seldom thrown together. He remembered Troutman then as a rather overgrown puppy type, and Schley as a nuisance and a hanger-on. He scanned them now, pleasantly surprised at their transformation. They had come into a clean-cut type, affable, alert, and if there was small mark of character, there was an abundance of good-humor, liveliness, and sociability.
“Well, Dink, old chap,” said Troutman, as he passed along quieter ways, “the fatal day approaches.”
“It does.”
“A lot of seniors are out buying nice brand-new derbies to wear for our benefit.”
“I’ll bet they’re scrapping like cats and dogs,” said Schley.
“They say last year the Bones list wasn’t agreed upon until five minutes before five.”
“The Bones crowd always fight,” said Schley, from the point of view of the opposite camp. “I say, Dink, did you ever think of heeling Keys?”
“No, I’m not a good enough jollier up for that crowd.”
“They say this year Keys is going to shut down on the sporting life and swipe some of the Bones type.”
“Really?” said Stover, in disbelief.
“Sure thing; Tommy Bain has switched.”
“I heard he was packer,” said Stover, not particularly depressed. In the college the rumor had always been that the Keys crowd had what was termed a packer in the junior class, who helped them to pledge some of their selections before Tap Day.
“Sure he is,” said Troutman, with conviction.
“Wish he’d stuck to Bones,” said Schley. “Yours truly would feel more hopeful.”
“Why, you fellows are sure,” said Stover to be polite.
“The deuce we are!”
Schley, tiring of the conversation, was amusing himself from the back seat by well-simulated starts of surprise and a sudden snatching off of his hat to different passersby, exclaiming:
“Why, how do you do. I remember meeting you before.”
He
