And throughout it all the freshman was wondering why the mighty senior honored him with a visit, and longing for a drink of very cold water.
Lawrence told himself that this call was merely to break the ice. You couldn't expect him to talk about such serious things when they were hardly acquainted. Could you?
He went again within a few days. He thought he ought to strike while the iron was hot. It was in the evening this time, and the freshman was brighter and better looking. Lawrence liked him more than ever, only he wished that he would not be quite so deferential toward him. Also he greatly wished that he would not consider it necessary to tack those superfluous words to his remarks. It bothered him. They seemed to come out of the refined mouth side wise. Sometimes they stuck, as it were, and hung there while Lawrence shivered. And the more obvious Lawrence made it that he did not consider such emphasis essential to his own observations, the more frequently did Darnell drag it in. This was to show the senior that he need not refrain on his account.
This time Lawrence remained until midnight. They did not once mention the people they both knew in town. They talked about tramping in the Harz Mountains.
It was evident on his third visit that the freshman considered Lawrence's frequent coming due to approval of his development. He stuck it on worse than ever. Lawrence was discouraged and looked it.
The freshman, wondering why his senior friend was so silent, suddenly lifted his big brown eyes. Lawrence was gazing mournfully at him. Naturally this made him feel queer. He became rattled and blushed. Lawrence became rattled and nearly did; and then arose, left abruptly, and kicked himself all the way up Nassau Street, and all along the stone walk past the dean's house, by Old North, in front of Reunion, and into West, where he sneaked up to bed. He did not call again for a month.
Meanwhile the freshman was doubtless running as fast as his legs could carry him, with Thompson and others of that ilk, to the devil. And H. L. Lawrence, Ninety Blank, who by wicked example had started him going, was doing nothing to stop him. Which was the very best thing he could have done.
For this is a sort of a disease, and if it's there it's bound to manifest itself, like other things that break out at about this age. Any fatherly, well-meaning interference, such as a fellow like Lawrence might offer, would have had directly the opposite of the desired effect. If you do not believe this, it clearly indicates that you do not understand it.
Lawrence did not. He, poor devil, skulked off and tried to forget about the freshman, like a rejected lover, and, again like one, he could not, even though he went across the street to avoid meeting those big eyes.
Once more he took a long breath and sneaked off to the freshman's room with a brave lot of kind, smiling advice which he practised saying on the way over. In a moment he came running back to the campus, shouting for joy. The freshman was not at home.