"No, it's not all that. I don't think some of our crowd realize what you're doing—rather fancy you're cutting loose from them."
"Let them think," said Stover carelessly. Then he added with some curiosity: "Has there been much talk?"
"Yes, there has."
"Any one spoken to you?"
"Yes."
"I know—I know they've got an idea I'm queering myself—oh, that word 'queer'; it's the bogey of the whole place."
"You're right there! But, Dink, I might as well let you know the feeling; it isn't simply in our set, but some of the crowd ahead."
"Le Baron, Reynolds?"
"Yes. Haven't they ever—ever said anything to you?"
"Bless their simple hearts," said Stover, untroubled. "So they're worrying about me. It's rather humorous. It's their inherited point of view. Le Baron, Joe, could no more understand what we are thinking about—and yet he's a fine type. Sure, he's stopped me a couple of times and shaken his head in a worried, fatherly way. To him, you see, everything is selective; what he calls the fellow who doesn't count, the 'fruit,' is really outside what he understands, the fellows who are in the current of what's being done here. I must talk it out with him sometime. We've come to absolutely opposite points of view. And yet the curious thing is, he's fond as the deuce of me."