For an hour, bareheaded, he went plunging into the darkness, a prey to a nervous crisis, that left him shaking in every muscle. He knew the extent of his passions, and the anger which had swept over him left him weak and frightened.

"It's lucky that runt of a Reynolds held his tongue," he said hotly. "By the Lord, I don't know what I would have done to him. Here, I must get hold of myself. This is terrible. Well, thank Heaven, it's over."

He controlled himself slowly, and came back, limp and weak; yet beyond the physical reaction was a liberated soaring of the spirit.

"I'm glad I did it! I never was gladder!" he said solemnly. "Good-by to the whole society game, Skull and Bones, and all the rest. But I take my stand from now on, and I stand on my own feet. I'm glad of it." Then he thought of Jean Story, and he was troubled. "I wonder if she'll understand? I can't help it. I couldn't do anything else. Now, I suppose the whole bunch will turn on me. So be it."

It was long after midnight when he came back gloomily to the light still staring from his window, and toiled up the heavy steps. When he entered the room, Le Baron, Bob Story, and Joe Hungerford were sitting silently, waiting for him, and in Story's hand was the pin bruised by his furious heel.

He saw at once the full strength of the appeal that was to be made to him, and he closed the door wearily.

"I don't want to talk about it," he said slowly. "The whole thing is done and buried."

Bob Story, agitated and solemn, came to him.

"Dink, this is awful—the whole thing is awful," he said earnestly. "You've got to talk it out with us."

"Do you understand, Bob," Stover said suddenly, "just what happened in this room?"

"Yes, I think I do."

"I don't believe it."

"Dink, I want you to listen to me a moment," said Le Baron. "It's been rotten business, the whole wretched thing. I can understand how you felt. Reynolds and you got on each other's nerves. You each said what you didn't mean. It was damned unfortunate. He put things to you like a fool, and I was telling him so when you broke into the room. He was all up on edge from something that had gone before."

"Oh, I lost my temper," said Stover. "I know it."

"I'd have done the same," said Hungerford openly.

"Now, Dink, there isn't one of us here that doesn't like you, and look up to you," said Story, with his irresistible charm. "We know you're every inch a man, and what you do you believe in. But, Dink, we're all friends together, and this is a terrible thing to us. We want you to take back your pin, and shut up this whole business. Will you?"

"I'd do a great deal for you, Bob Story," said Stover, looking him in the eyes, "more than for any one else, but I can't do this."

He said it calmly, with a little sadness. The three were impressed with the finality of the judgment. Story, standing with the cast-off pin in his hand, turning and twisting it, said slowly:

"Dink, do you really mean it?"

"I do."

"It's a serious thing you're doing, Stover," said Le Baron, with the first touch of formality, "and I don't think it should be done in anger."

"I'm not."

"Remember that you are judging a whole society—your own friends—by what one man happened to say to you in a moment of irritation."

"I don't want to talk of what's done," said Stover slowly, for his head was throbbing. "I know myself, and I know nothing is going to make me go back on what I've said. I'm only going to say a word, and then I'm going into my room and going to bed. Le Baron"—with a sudden rise of his voice he turned and faced the junior—"don't think I don't understand what it means that I'm giving up. I get what you mean when you start in calling me Stover. I know as well as I'm standing here that you and Reynolds will keep me out of Bones, whether I make captain or not. And that'll hurt me a good bit—I admit it. Now don't let's quibble. It isn't the way Reynolds said what he did—though that did rile me—it's what was told me, indirectly or directly—it's the same thing; you men in sophomore societies would limit my freedom of choice. There you are. I'm against you now, because for the first time I see how the thing works out, because you're wrong! You're a bad influence for those who are in, and a rotten influence for the whole college. Now I've made up my mind to just one thing. I'm going to finish up here at the head of my own business—my own master; and I'm not going to be in a position to be told by any one in your class or my class what I'm to do."

"One moment." Le Baron rose as Stover moved towards the bedroom. "There's another side to it."

"What other side?"

"Whatever you decide, and I won't take your answer until the morning," said Le Baron solemnly, "I want you to give me your word that what's happened to-night remains a secret."

"I won't give my word to that or anything else," said Dink defiantly. "I shall do exactly what I think is right to be done, and for that reason only. Now you'll have to excuse me. Good night."

He went to his bedroom, shut the door, and without undressing tumbled on the bed, and, still hearing in a confused jumble the murmur of voices, dropped off to sleep.

He was startled out of heavy dreams by a beating in his ears, and sprang up to find Bob Story thundering on his door. He looked at his watch. It was still an hour before chapel.

When he entered his dim study, Story was waiting, and Hungerford uncoiling from the couch where he had passed the night.

"Have you fellows been here all night?" said Stover, stopping short.

"Dink, we want a last chance to talk this over," said Story solemnly. "We've all had a chance to sleep it out. Le Baron isn't here, just Joe and myself—your friends."

"You make it hard for me, boys," said Dink, shaking his head.

Hungerford rose with the stiffness of the night, and coming to Stover, took him by the shoulders.

"Damn you, Dink," he said, "get this straight, we're not thinking about the society, we're thinking about you—about your future. And I want you to know this: whatever you decide, I'm your friend and proud to be it."

"What Joe says is what I feel," said Story, as Stover, much affected, stood looking at the ground. "We're sticking by you, Dink—that's why I'm going to try once more. Can't you go on in the society, make no open break, and still fight for what you believe in—what Joe and I believe in, too?"

"But, Bob, I think they're wrong through and through—you don't understand—I'm for wiping them out now."

"That whole question's coming up, and coming up soon," continued Story earnestly, "and a lot of our own crowd will line up for you. Work inside the crowd, if you can see it that way, Dink. There are only five of us know what's happened, and no one else need know."

"Wait a moment, Bob, old fellow," said Dink, stopping him. "You two have got down under my skin, and I won't forget it. Now I'm going to ask you fellows a couple of questions. First: you think if I stick to my determination that most of the crowd'll turn on me?"

"Yes."

"That I have as much chance of being tapped for Bones as Jackson, the sweep?"

"Yes, Dink."

"Now, boys, honest, if I took back my pin for any such reason as that, wouldn't I be a spineless, calculating little quitter?"

Neither answered.

"What would you think of me, Joe—Bob?"

"Damn the luck," said Hungerford. He did not attempt to answer the question. Neither did Bob Story. They shook hands with Stover, and went out defeated.

Just how big a change in his college career his renunciation would make, Stover had not understood until in the weeks that succeeded he came to feel the full effects of the resentment he had aroused in the society crowds, now at bay before a determined opposition.

The second morning, as he went down High Street to his eating-joint, Hungerford was loafing ahead of him, ostensibly conning a lesson. Stover joined him, unaware of the friendly intent of the action. They went inside, laughing together, to where a score of men were rubbing their eyes over hasty breakfasts. Four-fifths of them belonged to sophomore societies.

"Morning, everybody," said the new arrivals, in unison, and the answer came back:

"Hello, Joe."

"Hello, Dink."

"Shove in here."

At their arrival a little constrained silence was felt, for the news had somehow passed into rumor. Opposite Stover, Jim Hunter was sitting. He nodded to Hungerford, and then with deliberation continued a conversation with Tommy Bain, who sat next to him.

Stover perceived the cut instantly, as others had perceived it. He sat a moment quietly, his glance concentrated on Hunter.

"Oatmeal or hominy?" said the waiter at his back.

"One moment." He raised his hand, and the gesture concentrated the attention of the table on him. "Why, how do you do, Jim Hunter?" he said, with every word cut sharp.

There was a breathless moment, and a nervous stirring under foot, as Hunter turned and looked at Stover. Their glances matched one another a long moment, and then Hunter, with an excess of politeness, said:

"Oh, hello—Stover."

Instantly there was a relieved hum of voices, and a clatter of cutlery.

"I'll take oatmeal now," said Stover calmly. Story, glancing over, saw two spots of scarlet standing out on his cheeks, and realized how near the moment had come to a violent scene.

"Dink, old gazabo," said Hungerford, as they walked over to chapel, "what are you going to do? You can't go about the whole time with a chip on your shoulder."

"Oh, yes, I can," said Dink between his teeth. "I'll stick right where I am. And I'd like to see Jim Hunter or any one else try that again on me!"

Hungerford shook his head.

"You know, Dink, you must see both sides. Now from Hunter's side, you've smashed all traditions, and given us a blow that may be a knockout, considering the state of feeling in the college. Hunter's a society man, believes in them heart and soul."

"Then let him come to me and say what he thinks."

"Are you quite sure, Dink," said Joe, with a glance, "that there isn't some other reason for the way you two feel about each other?"

"You mean jealousy?" said Dink, flushing a little. "Bob's sister? Yes, there's that. But from the first we've been on opposite sides." He hesitated a moment, and then asked: "I say, Joe, what does Bob think about what I've done? Tell me straight."

"Of course he respects you," said Hungerford carefully, "more now than I think he did last year, but—Bob's a society man—all these Andover fellows are brought up in the idea, you know—and I think it's kind of a jolt."

"I suppose it is," said Stover, with a little depression.

He would like to have asked Hungerford to state his case to Jean Story, but he lacked the courage of his boyish impulse. The thought of Jean Story, as he sat in chapel, came to him like a temptation. The Judge was of the Skull and Bones alumni, Bob was sure to go; all the influences about her were of belief in the finality of that judgment.

"Yes, and Hunter will go in with sailing colors; he'll never risk anything," he said bitterly, "and I'll stand up and take my medicine, for doing what? For showing I had a backbone. But no one will ever know it outside. They'll think it's something wrong in my character—they always do. Stover, Yale's star end, misses out for Bones! That's the slogan. Cheating at cards or bumming. I wonder what she'll think? Lord, that's the hard part!"

For a week, proud as Lucifer, on edge for an opportunity, he stuck it out at the eating-joint, knowing the hopelessness of it all—that what he wanted had gone, and no amount of bravado could make him wink the fact, that in the midst of his own crowd, where he had stood as a leader, he was now regarded as an outsider.

In the second week he gave up the useless fight, and went to Commons, to the table where Regan, Gimbel, and Brockhurst ate. They forebore to ask him the reasons of the change, and he gave no explanation. That something had happened which had caused him to break away from his society was soon a matter of common rumor, and several incorrect versions circulated, all vastly to his credit. His influence in the body of the class was correspondingly increased, and Gimbel once or twice approached him with offers to run him for manager of the crew or the Junior Prom.

One day, about a month after his withdrawal, when, bundled up in his dressing-gown, he went shuffling into the basement for a cold tub, he had quite a shock, that brought home visually to him the realization of the price he had paid.

It had been the practise from long custom to inscribe on the walls tentative lists of the probable selections from the class for the three senior societies. On this particular list his name had stood at the head from the beginning, and the constant familiar sight of it had always brought him a warm, secure pleasure.

All at once, as he looked at it, he perceived a leaden blur where his name had stood, and the names of Bain and Hunter heading the list.

"I suppose they've got me down among the last now," he said, with a long breath. He searched the list, his name was not even on it. This popular estimation of what he himself believed had nevertheless power to wound him deeply.

"Well, it's so—I knew it," he said; but it was said in bitterness, with a newer and keener realization.

He began indeed to feel like an outsider, and, rebelling against the injustice of it all, to set his heart in bitterness. Hungerford and Bob Story, Dopey McNab often, tried to keep up with him, but, understanding their motives, he was proudly sensitive, and sought rather to avoid them.

Meanwhile the opposition to the sophomore societies reached the point of open revolt, and a mass meeting was held, which, as had been planned, caused a stir throughout the press of the country, and brought in from the alumni a storm of protest.

Stover, himself, despite his inclination to come forward in direct opposition, after a long debate, remained silent, feeling bound by the oath he had given at his initiation.

Shortly after the news spread like wildfire that the President, taking cognizance of the intolerable state of affairs, had summoned representatives of the three sophomore societies before him, and given them a month to deliberate and decide on some scheme of reform that would be comprehensive and adequate.

Rightly or wrongly, Stover felt that these developments intensified the feeling of the society element against him. A few weeks outside the boundaries, despite all his bravado, had brought home to him how much he cared for the companionship of those from whom he had separated.

Regan was his one friend; Brockhurst stimulated him; and in the intercourse with Swazey, Pike, Lake, Ricketts, and others he had found a certain inspiration. But after all, the men of his own kind—Story, Hungerford, and others, whom from pride he now avoided—were largely the men of the society crowd. They spoke a language he understood, they came from a home that was like his home, and their judgment of him would go with him out into the new relations in life.

"REGAN WAS HIS ONE FRIEND"—Page 288.

It was a time of depression and bitter revolt at what he knew was the injustice of his ostracism, forgetting how much was of his own proud choosing.

He wandered from crowd to crowd, rather taciturn and restless, seeking diversion with a consuming nervousness. The new restlessness of spirit drove him away from the conferences in Regan's and Swazey's rooms to the company of idlers. For a period, in his pride and bitterness, he let go of himself, flung the reins to the wind, and started down hill with a gallop.

In pursuance of his policy of open defiance, he chose to appear at Mory's with the wildest element of the class. His companions were a little in awe of his grim, concentrated figure; when he sat into a game of poker or joined a table of revelers, he did it with no zest. He never joined in the chorus, and if he occasionally broke out into a boisterous laugh, there was always a jarring note to it, that caused his companions to glance at him uneasily. With the impetuousness of his nature, he outstripped his associates, plunging deeper and deeper, obstinately resolved, into the black gulf of his cynicism. In a week his excesses became college gossip, and, unknown to Stover, the subject of many long conferences among his friends.

One Friday night, as, straying aimlessly from room to room, he set out for Mory's in quest of Tom Kelly and a group of Sheff pagans, he was trudging along the hard ways in front of Welch Hall, fists sunk in his pockets, head down under a slouch hat, when he chanced on Tom Regan coming out of the Brick Row.

"Hello there, bantam," said Regan, with the prerogative of his size.

"Hello, Tom," he said, but without enthusiasm, for he had rather avoided him in company with the rest of his old friends.

"That's a deuced cordial greeting! Where are you bound, stranger?"

"Mory's."

"Mory's," said Regan, appearing to consider. "Good idea. I've got a hankering after a toby of musty ale and a rabbit myself. Wait till I stow these books and I'll join you."

Stover stood frowning, suspicious and rebelling, for at that age it is a point of honor, when a man of the world resolves to run his head against a stone wall, that any interference from a friend is regarded as an unwarranted insult.

"He thinks he'll try the big brother act on me," he said, scowling. He was not in a particularly good humor, nor was his head clear from several nights that had gone their reeling way.

When they entered Mory's, Tom Kelly, Dopey McNab, and Buck Waters were already grouped in the inner room.

"Well, old flinthead, how do you feel after last night?" said Kelly, making room for them.

"Fine," said Dink mendaciously, secretly pleased at the tribute to his sporting talents before Regan.

"More'n I can say," said Dopey, affectionately feeling of his head. "Curse the man who invented fish-house punch."

"'CURSE THE FELLOW WHO INVENTED FISH-HOUSE PUNCH'"—Page 290.

"Get home all right?" continued Kelly.

"Sure."

"I had a little tiff with a cop. If he'd been smaller, I'd have taken his shield away. He was most impudent. Never mind, I beat him in a foot race."

"Cocktails," said Stover, resolved that Regan should be well punished. "Make it two for me, Louis, I'll have to catch up."

"I'll stick to a toby and a rabbit," said Regan, without a change of expression.

"Cocktail, Dopey?" continued Stover, with a millionaire gesture.

"I never refuse," said Dopey, who planned to go through life on that virtuous method.

With such a beginning, matters progressed with remarkable facility. Stover, taciturn and in an ugly mood, constantly hurried the rounds, matching drink for drink, secretly resolved to prove his supremacy here as elsewhere. Regan, after two tobies, withdrew from the contest, sitting silently puffing on his huge pipe, but without attempt at interference. Bob Story and Hungerford came in, and went away with a glance at Stover's clouded face and Regan's stolid, unfathomable expression. When midnight arrived, and Louis came in with apologies to announce the closing, there was quite a reckoning to be paid.

Stover was the best of the lot, doggedly resolved to show no effects of what he had taken. He felt a haziness in his vision, and words that were spoken seemed to be whirled away without record, but his legs stood firm, and his head was still under control. Buck Waters and a Sheff man took Tom Kelly home by a circuitous route to avoid either a wrestling match or a foot race with too zealous members of the New Haven police force; and Stover had the fierce pride of showing Regan that he could take charge of the hilarious but wabbly Dopey McNab, who, moved by the finest feelings of the brotherhood of man, was determined to scatter his superfluous change among his brother beings.

With great dignity and impressiveness, Stover, supporting one side, continued to give foggy directions to Regan on the other, until, come to McNab's quarters, they delivered that joyously exuberant person into his bed, propped up his head, opened the window, locked the door and left the key outside, to insure the termination of the night's adventure.

Stover went down the steep, endless stairs with great deliberation and minute pains.

"Dopey's got weak head—no good—stand nothing," he said seriously to Regan.

"Well, we've fixed him up for the night," said Regan cheerily. "You've got a wonderful top, old sport."

"I'm pretty good—Dopey's got the weak head," said Stover, taking his arm. "I'm good, I can put 'em under the table—all under the table."

"Good for you."

"Tom, you aren't—aren't in critical at-attochood, are you?" said Dink, with all feeling of resentment gone.

"Lord, no, boy."

"'Cause it does me good—this does me good. I feel bad—pretty bad, Tom, about some things. You don't know—can't tell—but I feel bad—this does me good—forget—you understand."

"I understand."

"You're a good friend, Tom. They don't understand—no one else understands. I'd like to shake hands. Thank you. Good night."

They had come opposite the Brick Row, and Regan, knowing the other's true condition, would have preferred to see him along to his room. But he knew of old the danger of making mistakes, so he said:

"Feel all right, old bantam?"

"Fine." Stover took a step or two, and then returned. "I put 'em to bed, didn't I?"

"You certainly did."

"Never 'fects me."

"You're a wonder."

"I thank you for your company."

"Good night."

Stover, intent only on making his entry, a hundred yards away, felt a roaring in his ears, and sudden jumble and confusion before him.

"Must get there—self-control—that's it, self-control," he said to himself, and by a supreme effort he reached his entry, pushed open the door, and, stumbling in out of Regan's vision, sat heavily down on the steps.

Some indistinct time after he beheld before him a little spectacled figure in pink pajamas.

"Who are you?" he said.

"Wookey, sir."

"What's your class?"

"Freshman, sir."

"Very well. All right. You can help me—help me up. You know me?"

"Yes, sir."

The pink pajamas approached, and with an effort he rose, and, grasping the proffered shoulder, tumbled up the steps. When he reached his room his mind seemed to clear a moment, like the sudden drifting to and fro of a fog.

"Who are you?" he said, frowning.

"Wookey, sir."

"Where do you room?"

"On the first landing, sir."

"Why do you wear pink ones?"

The little freshman, hero-worshipper, face to face with his first great emotion, the conduct of an intoxicated man, blurted out:

"Don't you like 'em, sir?"

"Keep 'em on," said Stover magnanimously. "So you're a freshman."

"Yes, sir."

Suddenly he felt impressed with his duty, his obvious duty to one below him.

"Freshman," he said thickly, "I want you listen to me. Never drink to excess—understand. You beginning college—school of character—hold on yourself—lead a good life—self-control's the great thing—take it from me—understand?"

"Yes, sir," said Wookey, awed and a little frightened at the service he was rendering to the great Dink Stover.

"That's all," said Stover benignly. "Is—is my bedroom still there?"

"Yes, sir."

"You may lead me to it."

When he had been brought to his bed he recalled the pink pajamas, and said:

"I thank you for your courtesy and your kindness." Then he said to himself: "It does me good—forget—happy now."

A moment later the fog closed over his consciousness again and he was asleep.