Philip’s tone made Julia think of the boy who whistled to keep his courage up. They were near the Square.
“I hope I’ll see you soon,” she said, as Philip began to gather up his belongings preparatory to leaving the car.
Philip paused for a moment, bending down to shake hands with her before jumping off. “I am not quite sure,” he said hesitatingly. “I should like to have a talk with you, but I am really going away at once.” Before she could ask him when, he had swung himself down and was hastening toward the Yard. He had murmured an explanation about an engagement, and Julia had taken this as an apology for his leaving her so abruptly. As she recalled the interview word by word, she wished that she might have had a good talk with Edith. The next day was so hot that Julia went down to Rockley for Sunday, and there, naturally enough, she found them all talking of Philip’s failure to get his degree. “It all comes,” said Mr. Barlow, “from letting a boy have his own way in everything. I suppose that Philip has never had an ungratified wish. When his father was in college students had to study. I know how it was, for we were in the same class. But now—why, study is merely incidental. They elect this or they elect that, and it is all a matter of whim.”
“So students were altogether perfect in your day, Uncle Robert,” said Julia a little mischievously. “Then it wasn’t you who told me of a whole class that was at least half expelled?”
“Rusticated, my dear, or suspended; not expelled,” responded Mr. Barlow with a smile. “Oh, I dare say that we were not exactly perfect, but then, you know boys will be boys.”
“Yes, but as I understand it, Philip hasn’t even been rusticated, and still less expelled. It’s only that he can’t get his degree this year.”
“Well, well,” said Mr. Barlow, “it seems to me that that is bad enough.”
“Oh,” interposed Brenda, “I shouldn’t wonder if he’d get it next year. Philip always could get anything he wanted if he’d take the trouble.”
“It’s a pity that he hadn’t taken the trouble this year. Really, I sympathize with his father. He has spent much money on Philip, and here he sees him leave Cambridge with a kind of stigma, for that is what it amounts to. I doubt that that ever happened to a Blair before. They may never have been brilliant, but they’ve always had a respectable standing in college. I don’t wonder that Mr. Blair is annoyed.”
“But Edith,” cried Brenda, “just think of Edith! She told me when she came home last autumn that she was very tired of Europe, and here she is dragged off again at a few days’ notice, and she wanted so much to have a jolly Class Day. Even if Philip isn’t there she might manage to have a good time. She has as many invitations as I have, and there are Tom Hearst and Will Hardon and all the others whom she knows so well.”