Roger’s arm fell across his shoulders and Roger went on talking to him quietly and convincingly, making it plain that his proper course was to return to school the following day exactly as if nothing had happened.
“Leave it to me; leave it to me,” Roger persisted. “I’ll guarantee to settle the whole matter for you. Say you’ll let me take care of this affair, old chap.”
“You—I—I——”
“Then it’s settled, is it?” cried the determined boy. “You’ll be there to-morrow? That’s first rate! Give me your hand on it.”
Ben found Roger shaking his hand, and he returned the warm, friendly grip, a mist in his eyes.
“I can’t hardly believe I’m lucky enough to have such a friend,” half whispered the boy whose starved heart had yearned all his life for friendship and comradery. “It’s too good to be true.”
“Perhaps I’m a bit selfish about it, too,” said Eliot. “I have my eye on you for the eleven, as we’re bound to do up Wyndham this year. You ought to be a stiff man in the line. I want you to come out for practice to-morrow night. We’ll have our coach next week, and then we’ll have to settle right down to business and get into trim. He’ll make us toe the scratch.”
Later, on the way back to his bare room at Mrs. Jones’, Ben wondered if he had not been dreaming. It did not seem possible that such good fortune could come to him at last, just when, to all appearances, his hard luck had culminated in blighting disaster.
As he thought of his visit to Roger Eliot’s home, of his reception by Roger’s family, of that dinner in the handsome dining room, and of Roger’s earnest pledge on hearing his story to stand by him and be his friend, a strange and wonderful feeling of lightness and exuberant happiness possessed him and made him long to shout and sing. An inward voice seemed whispering that he had left behind him all the dark shadows, and now stood on the threshold of a brighter and better life.
Still it was not wholly without a feeling of dread and misgiving that he approached the academy the following morning, and the fear that somehow things might not go right after all left his face pale, although his heart beat tumultuously, as he came up the gravel walk.