"Why, what's wrong with him?"
"He hasn't any one ahead pulling for him," said Story, "and most of the other fellows have. That's one fault we have."
"It would knock him out to miss."
"It is tough."
They spoke a little more in a desultory way, and Stover left. He was dissatisfied. He wanted Story to like him, conscious of a new longing in himself for the friendships that did not come, and yet somehow he could find no common ground of conversation. Moreover, and he rather resented it, there was not in Story the least trace of the admiration and reverence that he was accustomed to receive, as a leader should receive.
The following weeks were ones of intrigue and nervous speculation. Pledged among the first, he found himself with Hunter, Story, and Tommy Bain in the position of adviser as to the selection of the rest of his crowd. Hunter and Bain, each with an object in view, sought to enlist his aid. He perceived their intentions, not duped by the new cordiality, growing more and more antagonistic to their businesslike ambitions. With Joe Hungerford and Bob Story he found his real friends. And yet, what completely surprised him was the lack of careless, indolent camaraderie which he had known at school and had expected in larger scope at college. Every one was busy, working with a dogged persistence along some line of ambition. The long, lazy afternoons and pleasant evenings were not there. Instead was the grinding of the mills and the turning of the wheels. How it was with the rest he ignored; but with his own crowd—the chosen—life was earnest, disciplined in a set purpose. He felt it in the open afternoon, in the quiet passage of candidates for the baseball teams, the track, and the crew; in the evenings, in the strumming of instruments from Alumni Hall and the practising of musical organizations, and most of all in the flitting, breathless passage of the News heelers—in snow or sleet, running in and out of buildings, frantically chasing down a tip, haggard with the long-drawn-out struggle now ending the fourth month.
He himself had surrendered again to this compelling activity and gone over to the gymnasium, taking his place at the oars in the churning tanks, bending methodically as the bare torso of the man in front bent or shot back, concentrating all his faculties on the shouted words of advice from the pacing coach above him.
He was too light to win in the competition of unusual material—he could only hope for a second or third substitute at best; but that was what counted, he said to himself, what made competition in the class and brought others out, just as it did in football. And so he stuck to his grind, satisfied, on the whole, that his afternoons were mapped out for him.
Meanwhile the pledges to the sophomore societies continued and the field began to narrow. McCarthy's hold-off was renewed each time, but the election did not arrive.
In his own crowd Story, Hungerford, and himself found themselves in earnest alliance for the election of Regan and Brockhurst. Regan, however, had so antagonized certain members of their sophomore crowd that their task was well-nigh impossible. He had been pronounced "fresh," equivalent almost to a ban of excommunication, for his extraordinary lack of reverence to things that traditionally should be revered, and as he had a blunt, direct way of showing in his eyes what he liked and disliked, his sterling qualities were forgotten in the irritation he caused. Besides, as the opening narrowed to three or four vacancies, Hunter and Bain, in the service of their own friends, arrayed themselves in silent opposition to him and to Brockhurst.