CHAPTER X — CRAVEN
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That evening Olva was elected President of the Wolves. It was a ceremony conducted with closed doors and much drinking of wine, by a committee of four and the last reigning President who had the casting vote. The College waited in suspense and at eleven o'clock it was understood that Dune had been elected.
According to custom, on the day following in "Hall" Olva would be cheered by the assembled undergraduates whilst the gods on the dais smiled gently and murmured that "boys will be boys."
Meanwhile the question that agitated the Sauline world was the way that Cardillac would take it. "If it had been any one else but Dune . . ." but it couldn't have been any one else. There was no other possible rival, and "Cards," like the rest of the world, bowed to Dune's charm. The Dublin match, to be played now in a fortnight's time, would settle the football question. It was generally expected that they would try Dune in that match and judge him finally then on his play. There was a good deal of betting on the matter, and those who remembered his earlier games said that nothing could ever make Dune a reliable player and that it was a reliable player that was wanted.
When Olva came into "Hall" that evening he was conscious of two pairs of eyes, Craven's and Bunning's. On either side of the high vaulted hall the tables were ranged, and men, shouting, waving their glasses, lined the benches. Olva's place was at the end farthest from the door and nearest the High Table, and he had therefore the whole room to cross. He was smiling a little, a faint colour in his cheeks. At his own end of the table Craven was standing, silent, with his eyes gravely fixed upon Olva's face. Half-way down the hall there was Bunning, and Olva could see, as he passed up the room, that the man was trembling and was pressing his hands down upon the table to hold his body still.
When Olva had sat down and the cheering had passed again into the cheerful hum that was customary, the first voice that greeted him was Cardillac's.
"Congratulations, old man. I'm delighted."
There was no question of Cardillac's sincerity. Craven was sitting four places lower down; he had turned the other way and was talking eagerly to some man on his farther side—but the eyes that had met Olva's two minutes before had been hostile.
Cardillac went on: "Come in to coffee afterwards, Dune; several men are coming in."