"It's something to be able to refuse what others are grabbing for," he said shortly. "But all you seem to care for is the name."
The flash that was in his eyes surprised her, and the sudden stern note in his voice that she had never heard before brought her to a quick realization of how she must have wounded him. Her manner changed. She became very gentle, and before he went she said hurriedly:
"Forgive me. You were right, and I was very petty."
But though he had shown his independence of her ambitions for him, and gained thereby, at heart he had a foolish longing, a senseless dream of winning out on Tap Day—just for the estimation he knew she held of that honor. And, wishing this ardently, he was influenced by it. There were questions about the senior societies that he had not put to himself honestly, as he had in the case of the sophomore. He knew they were way back in his mind, claiming to be met, but, thinking of Jean, he said to himself evasively again and again:
"Suppose there are bad features. I've done enough to show my nerve. No one can question that!"
With the passing of the winter, and the return to college in the pleasant month of April, the final, all-absorbing Tap Day loomed over them only six weeks away. It was not a particularly agreeable period. The contending ambitions were too keen, too conflicting, for the maintenance of the old spirit of comradeship. The groups again defined themselves, and the "lame ducks," in the hopes of being noticed, assiduously cultivated the society of what are called "the big men."
One afternoon in the first week in April, as Dink was returning from the gymnasium, he was suddenly called to from the street. Chris Schley and Troutman, in a two-seated rig, were hallooing:
"Hello there, Dink."
"Come for a ride."