"I say, Dink," said Regan, laying his huge paw on his shoulder, "don't get your head turned by this social business."
"Heavens, no!"
"'Cause there's some real stuff in you, boy, and some day it's coming out. Thanks, by the way, for wanting to make me a society favorite."
Dink left with a curious mixture of emotions. Regan always had an ascendency over him he could not explain. It irritated him that he could not shake it off, and yet he was genuinely chained to the man.
"Why the deuce did Le Baron put that in my head?" he said to himself, for the tenth time. "If Regan beats me out for captain it'll only be because he's older and has got a certain way about him. Well, I suppose if I'm to be captain I've got to close up more; I can't go cutting up like a kid. I've got to be older."
He resolved to be more dignified, more melancholy, shorter of speech, and consistent in gravity. For the first time he felt what it meant to calculate his chances. Before, everything had come to him easily. He had missed the struggle and the heartburnings. Now, suddenly, a shadow had fallen across the open road, the shadow of one whom he had regarded as a sort of protégé. He had thoughts of which he was ashamed, for at the bottom he was glad that Regan would not be of a sophomore society—that that advantage would be denied him; and, a little guiltily, he wondered if he had tried as hard as he might have to show him the opportunity.
"If they ever know him as I do," he said, with a generous revulsion, "he'll be the biggest thing in the class." York Street and the busy windows of Pierson Hall came into his vision. A group of sophomores, ending their tour of visits, passed him, saluting him cordially. He thought all at once, with a sharp rebellion, how much freer Regan was, with his own set purpose, than he under the tutelage of Le Baron.
"I wonder what I'd do if no darn sophomore societies existed," he said to himself thoughtfully. And then, going up the stairs to his room, he said to McCarthy as he entered: "I guess, after all, I'll get out and slave again this spring—might as well heel the crew. I'm just varsity material—that's all!"