On his white shirt the tiny fraternity brooch made a conspicuous mark. Gorgas reached over and carefully disengaged the patent fastening and, with equal care, pinned it upon her own proud new gown. Morris watched her without speaking. She gave it several little pats to see if it were secure and then talked into his right ear.
“That’s for good luck.”
“Going to keep it?” he grinned. He knew all about the significance of wearing a man’s fraternity pin.
“There’s never no telling. Mebbe; if you win.”
“She’s rather savage, don’t you think?” Blynn leaned forward and rallied her. “Think how all Clarke’s little girls will feel if he loses.”
“That’s their affair,” she shut her lips. “We’re after that cup, aren’t we, boy? When we play we go in hard; no quarter; divil take the hindmost. That’s the only way to play. Slash ’em, knock ’em over, go for ’em. I just hate the chap I’m playing against—until the game’s over.”
“Contrariwise?” Morris jested.
“Sans doute,” she patted him on the head, “until the game’s over.”
They chatted together like chums, until the call came for the finals.
To Blynn those two young persons seemed suddenly alien; it was his first sense of moving away from very young life. It comes to some men in the twenties and to others not until much later. One day you find yourself a stranger to the prattle about you; it may be you grow a little testy at its inanities, its silly repetitions and obvious repartee; or perhaps you try to join in, and find the youngsters combining to laugh at your clumsiness. Over there, smoking stolidly in the easy chairs, there is where you belong. You stare and figure out ages and discover to your consternation that you do belong over there. Then some old, old, lady to whom you feel like saying, “Yes, ma’am” and “No, ma’am”—if that was the salutation of your own day—comes burbling forward to claim you as a contemporary. And with the laughter of the children still in your ears, and half claiming your attention, you begin lamely to talk life insurance or the present administration’s foreign policy.