"I've never hung round him. He knows I haven't. Two or three times I've run into him, as I've done to-day. Twice I've stepped in, to keep him from getting the gate, this time as a drunk, the other time as a damn fool. I'd do that for anyone. I'd do it for him, if I found him in the same mess again."
"That's fair enough, Tad," the referee approved. "You can't kick against it."
Tad tried to speak, but Tom went on with quiet authority.
"So that since he likes warnings he can take that one. I shan't let him be chucked out of Harvard if I can help it."
Tad sprang. "The devil you won't!"
Tom continued to speak only to the third party. "No, the devil I won't! I don't know why I feel that way about him, but that's the way I feel. And anyhow, now he knows."
Still addressing the companion only, he uttered a curt "Good-night." The companion responded civilly with "Good-night" on his side.
He neither looked at Tad, nor flung a word at him. Wheeling to face what had now blown into a snowstorm, he walked off into its teeth. But as he went he repeated the question he had put to Hildred Ansley.
"Why do they seem to hate me so?"