XII
Keith was one of the first to enter the class room on the morning of Commencement Day. He was still standing near the door when Davidson appeared and evidently meant to walk past him without a greeting.
"Say, Davidson," Keith cried impulsively, holding out his hand, "I don't mind!"
"Well, what do you think I care," the other boy asked icily as he turned on his heel and walked out of the room again without taking the proffered hand.
It was the first time that Keith felt the sting of real hatred. He could never have acted like that--not even toward one who had wronged him seriously. What galled him most was that he had been made to look as if he were apologizing. Then a sense of triumph returned little by little, but it was not very vivid, and what he missed utterly was the fact that no other situation could have been quite so hard on Davidson's pride as the one in which Dally had placed him. A realization of that fact came only years afterwards.
Then Dally himself arrived, and soon the commencement exercises were in full progress, Keith feeling quite superior to any curiosity or excitement. Again he received a prize, and again it was in the form of money, but a smaller sum not accompanied by any special encomiums. He walked home very quietly with his parents, and they had not much to say either.
Had Keith known what an anti-climax was, he would undoubtedly have used that word to describe the experiences of his second Commencement Day at Old Mary.