"I see Pauline has married and gone abroad," he said.
"Yes, so I heard from Olivia," replied Pierson, avoiding Scarborough's eyes.
"Why didn't you tell me?" continued Scarborough, tranquil so far as Pierson could judge. "I'd have liked to send her a note."
Pierson was silent.
"I thought it would cut him horribly," he was thinking. "And he's taking it as if he had only a friendly interest." Scarborough's face was again behind the newspaper. When he had finished it he sauntered toward the door. He paused there to glance idly at the titles of the top row in the book-case. Pierson was watching him. "No—it's all right," he concluded. Scarborough was too straight and calm just to have received such a blow as that news would have been had HE cared for Pauline. Pierson liked his look better than ever before—the tall, powerful figure; the fair hair growing above his wide and lofty brow, with the one defiant lock; and in his aquiline nose and blue-gray eyes and almost perfect mouth and chin the stamp of one who would move forward irresistibly, moving others to his will.
"How old are you, Scarborough?" he asked.
"Twenty-three-nearly twenty-four. I ought to be ashamed to be only a freshman, oughtn't I?" He shrugged his shoulders. "I'm tired of it all." And he strolled out.
He avoided Pierson and Olivia and all his friends for several days, went much into the woods alone, took long walks at night. Olivia would have it that he had been hard hit, and almost convinced Pierson.
"He's the sort of person that suffers the most," she said. "I've a brother like him—won't have sympathy, keeps a wound covered up so that it can't heal."
"But what shall I do for him?" asked Pierson.