Brockhurst, ill at ease, moved away, pursued always by a shackling self-consciousness in the presence of those to whom he consciously felt he was mentally superior.
One direct result came to Stover from the visit to Swazey's rooms. Despite the protests and arguments, he did not report for the competition for the crew.
"Stay in for a couple of months," said Le Baron. "We want the moral effect of every one's coming out."
"Sorry; I've made up my mind," said Dink.
"Why?"
"Want time to myself. I've never had it, and now I'm going to get it."
Le Baron of the machine did not understand him, and he did not explain. Stover was essentially a man of action and not a thinker. He did not reason things out for himself, but when he became convinced he acted. So, when he had thought over Brockhurst's theories and admitted that he was not independent, he determined at once to be so. He began zealously, turning his back on his own society crowd, to seek out the members of his class whom he did not know, resolved that his horizon should be of the freest. For the first time he began to reason on what others said to him. He went often to Swazey's rooms, and Regan's, which were centers of discussion. Some of the types that drifted in were incongruous, bizarre, flotsam and jetsam of the class; but in each, patiently resolved, he found something to stir the imagination; and when, under Regan's quickening influence, he stopped to consider what life in the future would mean to them, he began to understand what his friend, the invincible democrat, meant by the inspiring opportunity of college—the vision of a great country that lay on the lips of the men he had only to seek out.
Dink was of too direct a nature and also too confident in the strength of his position to consider the effect of his sudden pilgrimage to what was called the "outsiders." Swazey and Pike, at his invitation, took to dropping into his room and working out their lessons with him. Quite unconsciously, he found himself constantly in public companionship with them and other newly discovered types who interested him.
About two weeks after this new life had begun, Le Baron stopped him one day, with a little solicitous frown, saying:
"Look here, Dink, aren't you cutting loose from your own crowd a good deal?"