"Come, I must get this hole fixed up. It's gloomy as the devil."
He worked feverishly, ripping apart the covers, ranging the furniture, laying the rugs. Then he put in order his bedroom, and, whistling loudly, fished out his bedclothes, laid the bed, and arranged his bureau-top. That done, he brought forth several photographs he had taken in the brief visit he had paid the Storys, and placing them in the position of honor lit his pipe and, camping on a dry-goods box, like Scipio amid the ruins of Carthage, dreamily considered through the smoke-wreaths the distant snap-shots of a slender girl in white.
He was comfortably, satisfactorily in love with Jean Story. The emotion filled a sentimental want in his nature. He had never asked her for her photograph or to correspond, as he would have lightly asked a hundred other girls. He knew instinctively that she would have refused. He liked that in her—her dignity and her reserve. He wanted her regard, as he always wanted what others found difficult to attain. She was young and yet with an old head on her shoulders. In the two weeks he had spent in camp, they had discussed much together of what lay ahead beyond the confines of college life. He did not always understand her point of view. He often wondered what was the doubt that lay in her mind about him. For, though she had given him a measure of her friendship, there was always a reserve, something held back. It was the same with Bob. It puzzled him; it irritated him. He was resolved to beat down that barrier, to shatter it some way and somehow, as he was resolved that Jim Hunter, whose intentions were clear, should never beat him out in this race.
He rose, pipe in mouth, and, taking up a photograph, stared at the laughing face and the quiet, proud tilt of the head.
"At any rate," he said to himself, "Jim Hunter hasn't got any more than this, and he never will."
He went back to the study, delving into the packing-boxes. From below came a stentorian halloo he knew well:
"Oh, Dink Stover, stick out your head!"
"Come up, you, Tom Regan, come up on the jump!"
In another moment Regan was in the room, and his great bear clutch brought Stover a feeling of warmth with its genuineness.
"Bigger than ever, Tom."