Bobs laughed, and before he could speak, Mademoiselle hurried along, adding over her shoulder:
“Honey, I know just one thing about the little children who play football. Sometimes—once in a long while—they pass my examinations!”
The big fellow sent a smile of genuine liking after her. “Can’t get ahead of Mademoiselle,” he said, but, to his surprise, as he turned back to Jacquette, she met him with a serious, almost rebuking gaze.
“Bobs,” she said, “Quis thinks there’s no excuse for a football man’s having the reputation Mademoiselle gave you just now. He says a fellow can play football and keep up his studies, too, if he tries hard enough. He does it. He stands well in everything, and you know he’s a good football player.”
“Oh, yes,” Bobs assented, carelessly. “Quis never has to work on his lessons, though. He just looks at ’em. Most of us have to peg.”
“Bobs,” said Jacquette, with a sudden little tremble in her voice, “can’t you—couldn’t you, possibly—Bobs, won’t you please manage, somehow, to put Quis on for the game, to-morrow?”
Bobs’s face was blank with astonishment. “What can I do?” he exclaimed. “He’s my sub, you know. You wouldn’t have me deliberately get smashed to give him a chance?”
“Of course not! But Quis is as good as any of the team. You know that. Why couldn’t you put him on instead of one of the others? The rest have all played enough to win their emblems, haven’t they?”
“Yes, but see here! I can’t pick a fellow off the team and put another in his place, as if they were so many ninepins. They have feelings—and rights, too. A girl can’t understand!”
“I understand this much,” she insisted, her eyes filling with tears, “you’re the captain, and the boys think whatever you do is right, anyway, and you could manage it, somehow! I stood up for you to Quis, Bobs, but if you really did keep him off the team just because he was a Beta Sig, and now won’t even let him win his emblem, I can’t help thinking you haven’t been square!”