"Good night," said Frank—and I felt in his voice all of the cheery obligation of friendship. He was expecting wonders of me.
Walking on alone, across the open gloominess of deserted paths and night winds in the shrubbery, a thousand foolish fears tramped by my side and sang into my ears. I had hidden my empty spirit from those two boys—but I could not hide it from myself. I wondered what sort of a fight was ahead of me, and how long it would last, and what would be the final result. Those two men, Sayer and Braley, were among the most influential of the class. They were members of my senior society. They could hold me down by sentimental ties of brotherhood, much as Trevelyan had been held down by his fraternity mates; failing that, they could use their popularity, their clinch upon college opinion to force me literally into silence. They could run me out of college, if they pleased. I knew this, did not deny it to myself as I went forward to the first skirmish.
Once I turned around and almost retreated to my rooms. But the remembrance of the sting that was in Frank's reproachful look would not let me do that.
So I came to the steps of the big Y. M. C. A. building. They were many, these white stone steps, and they shone in the moonlight with a mottling of hazardous shadows. I mounted them and went into the huge assembly hall on the first floor. I heard the awkward, self-conscious benediction and adjournment of the meeting—for they were all young fellows, and had not yet learned to be entirely glib towards their meetings—and stood aside to let them pass out. As the first of them went through the door and out upon the campus, they burst into the giddy laughs which moonlight conjures—and I heard them singing foolish glees—snatches of song that were utterly pagan and gleeful, and far from the heated stuffiness of their prayer meeting. They seemed to have found their Kindly Light more easily in the open.
The man for whom I now waited had always been the leader of my class; this year, he was the idol of the entire university. Captain of football, a 'varsity baseball man, he had the finest, sincerest character that I had ever known. He was not merely popular, in our undergraduate sense. Underclassmen worshipped him from afar, and upperclassmen, who knew him and the life that he led, loved him and respected him with a love and respect which few men can ever win.
He and I had become friendly, lately. It was due, perhaps, to the fact that we now belonged to the same senior society. Before, I had worshipped from afar; now I knew him well and warmly—and, as I look back upon my college life, I am amazed to realize how much of his influence went into the making of it.
As he came out, I noticed how his broad shoulders filled the doorway and blocked out its light completely. But his face was above the shadows, and I had a sudden sense of comfort from the resolute kindliness that shone upon it.
"Fred," I said, "I want your help on something."
As president of the Y. M. C. A. he had a room allotted him in the building where he might sleep. I knew that he had a suite in his fraternity house, too—but he preferred to stay here, for some reason, in this smaller, simpler place, where he would be nearer his duties.
When he had me in the plain little den, sitting before the miniature wood fire which he heaped with broken twigs, he sat me down and gave me a few minutes of tactful silence. I was thinking it all out. I wanted to tell it to him fairly, concisely, with no imprecations, and yet with no weakening of attitude. Then I did tell it, simply, just as the two boys had told it to me.