When he had returned to the college after the summer, he came to his first call on Jean Story with a confident enthusiasm, eager for the first look in her eyes. He had not corresponded with her during the summer. He had not even asked for permission to write, confident though he was that her consent would now be given. He was resolved, as a penance for his first blunder, to hold himself in reserve on every occasion. Bob had written the news, always pressing him to take two weeks off for a visit to the camp, but Dink, despite the tugging at his heart, had stuck to Regan, perhaps a little secretly pleased to show his earnestness.
Now, as he came swinging impatiently toward the glowing white columns under the elms, he realized all at once what was the moving influence in his struggle for growth and independence.
"Here is the horny-handed son of toil," he said, holding out his hand with a laugh.
She took it, turning over the firm palm with a little curiosity, and looked at him sharply, aware of a great change—they were no longer boy and girl. The vacation had made of the impetuous Dink Stover she had known a new personality that was strange and a little intimidating.
He did not understand at all the sudden dropping of her look, nor the uneasy turning away, nor the quick constraint that came. He was hurt with a sudden sharp sting that he had never known before and the ache of unreasoning jealousy at the bare thought of what might have happened during the summer.
"I'm awfully glad to see you," she said, but the words sounded formal.
He followed her into the parlor puzzled, irritated by something he did not understand, something that lay underneath everything she said, and seemed to interpose itself as a barrier between them and the old open feeling of camaraderie.
"Mother will be so glad to see you," she said, after a little moment of awkwardness. "I must call her."
This maneuver completed his bewilderment, which increased when, Mrs. Story joining them, suddenly the Jean Story of old returned with the same cordiality and the same enthusiasm. She asked a hundred questions, leading him on until he was launched into an account of his summer experiences, the little bits of real life that had brought home to him the seriousness of the world that waited outside.
He spoke not as the Stover of sophomore year, filled with the enthusiasm of discovery, but with a maturer mind, which had begun to reflect and to reason upon what had come into his knowledge.