The chairman made unwilling answer, “Five to one.”
Pete’s hand fell with a resounding slap on Sumner’s shoulder. “Five to one!” he whispered, exultant; “Thorne voted with us! Isn’t he a corker to do that?”
“Five to one,” repeated Mr. Snyder. “It is too bad it couldn’t have been unanimous. I should like to say before we separate that this whole affair seems to me in the highest degree ill-advised and unfortunate. Unless we respect each other sufficiently to trust in each other’s honesty and honor, we have no right to be leagued together. To encourage accusations like these we have heard to-day without incontrovertible proofs to support them is in itself an act of treachery to the League. I hope we shall never be compelled to discuss such a question again.”
The meeting was over. President John was jerking on his coat and savagely stamping his feet into his overshoes. Sumner and Talbot, having exchanged congratulatory grips, were pouring out fervent expressions of gratitude to their friends from Trowbridge, who had believed them honest men, not liars and cheats. At the moment of adjournment Thorne had taken his hat, and without a word to friend or foe, had slipped through the door. Newbold, following closely after, overtook him in the hall.
“That’s right! Run away and hide yourself, you traitor!” shouted the captain, his voice trembling with rage.
Thorne swung sharply round. “I’m not hiding from you, anyway,” he said coolly. “What have you got to say about it?”
“I say you’re a disgrace to the school. First you threw us by letting on that that tackle signal was a new one, and then you voted against us, against your own school!”
“I told the truth, and I voted for what I thought was right!”
“What you thought was right!” sneered Newbold. “You voted that way just to get in with those Westcott fellows, that’s what you did it for. But you won’t succeed. No one respects a traitor, least of all those who use him!”
This was a shot which wounded, not because it was true, but because it suggested a despicable motive for an act prompted solely by scruples of conscience. Thorne started as if pricked by a pin.