"Excuse me," he began.
The girl looked him in the eye.
"Get that rope off!"
She was just a little thing, but her gaze never wavered. The direct gaze is something that wild beasts and bullies, Freshmen or otherwise, cannot bear. Pete Halleck looked around for moral support, but his men were shame-faced and the bleachers were silent. He bent down and slipped the rope off Smith's feet.
With the rout of their leader the whole fighting class, weighing some ten tons in battle trim, vanished like chaff before the spirit of one Freshie co-ed. By twos and threes they slouched away, trying to look unconcerned.
She turned to the man she had rescued.
"Are you much hurt, Mr. Smith?" she asked, her voice sweet with sympathy.
The Sophomore president stood there, rumpled, winded, flaming with embarrassment. Away up on the bleachers a girl in an Easter hat tittered and a general laugh followed. That laugh brought Smith to himself, but, before he could turn to thank her, Hannah, with a swift, frightened glance at the people, had fled to the Quadrangle. With swelling bosom and eyes stinging with restrained tears she leaned her face against a cool pillar and watched the swallows circle mistily about the red tiling.
People, coming from the ball-ground, passed her, unnoticed in the shadow. A man's voice, ringing with merriment, cried: