About the latter, Stover found himself increasingly unable to make up his mind. He went to see him once or twice, but the visit was never returned. In his infallibility—for infallibility is a requisite of a leader—he decided that there was something queer about him. He rather shunned others, took long walks by himself, in a crowd always seemed removed, watching others with a distant eye which had in it a little mockery. His room was always in confusion, as was his tousled hair. In a word, he was a little of a barbarian, who did not speak the ready lip language that was current in social gatherings, and, unfortunately, did not show well his paces when confronted with inspection. So when the final vote came Stover, infallible judge of human nature, conscientiously decided that Brockhurst did not rank with the exceedingly choice crowd of which he was a leader.
With the arrival of the elections for the managerships of the four big athletic organizations, positions in the past disputed by the candidacies of the three sophomore societies, a revolution took place. The non-society element, organized by Gimbel and other insurgents ahead of him, put up a candidate for the football managership and elected him by an overwhelming majority, and repeated their success with the Navy.
The second victory was like the throwing down of a gauntlet. The class, which had been quietly dividing since the advent of the hold-offs, definitely split, and for the first time Stover became aware of the soundness of the opposition to the social system of which he was a prospective leader. Quite to his surprise, Jim Hunter appeared in his room one night.
"What the deuce does he want now?" he thought to himself, wondering if he were to be again solicited in favor of Stone, who was still short of election.
"I say, Dink, we're up against a serious row," said Hunter, making himself comfortable and speaking always in the same unvarying tone. "The class is split to pieces."
"It looks that way."
"It's all Gimbel and that crowd of soreheads he runs. We had trouble with him up at Andover."
"Well, Jim, what do you think about the whole proposition?" said Stover. "The college seems pretty strong against us."
"It's just a couple of men who are cooking it up to work themselves into office," said Hunter, dismissing the idea lightly. "You'll see, that's all there is to it."
Somehow, Stover found that renewed contest with Hunter only increased the feeling of antagonism he had felt from the first. He was aware of a growing resistance to Hunter's point of view, guarded and deliberate as it was. So he said point blank: