"Why, yes, I guess I am," Dink announced, quite unconsciously.
"I wouldn't get identified too much with—well, with some of the fellows you've taken up."
Stover smiled, and went his way undisturbed. For the first time he felt his superiority over Le Baron. Le Baron could not know what he knew—that it was just these new acquaintances who had waked him up out of his torpor and made a thinking being of him. Others in his class, mistaking his motives, began to twit him:
"I say, Dink, what are you out for?"
"Running for something?"
"Getting into politics?"
"Junior Prom, eh?"
He turned the jests aside with jests as ready, quite unaware that in his own crowd he was arousing a little antagonism; for he was developing in such deep lines that he did not perceive vexing details.
All at once he remembered that it had been over a fortnight since he had called at the Storys' and he ran over one afternoon about four o'clock, expecting to stay for dinner; for the Judge kept open house to the friends of his son, and Stover had readily availed himself of the privilege to become intimate.