"Skull and Bones, of course," said McCarthy defiantly. "Look at it under your eyelids, quick; don't let any one see you."
Stover, without hearing him, gazed ahead, impressed despite himself. There it was, the symbol and the embodiment of all the subtle forces that had been disclosed to him, the force that had stood amid the passing classes, imposing its authority unquestioned, waiting at the end of the long journey to give or withhold the final coveted success.
"Will I make it—will I ever make it?" he said to himself, drawing a long breath. "To be one of fifteen—only fifteen!"
"It is a scary sort of looking old place," said McCarthy. "They certainly have dressed it up for the part."
Still Stover did not reply. The dark, weighty, massive silhouette had somehow entered his imagination, never to be shaken off, to range itself wherever he went in the shadowy background of his dreams.
"It stands for democracy, Tough," he said, as they turned toward Chapel Street, and there was in his voice a certain emotion he couldn't control. "And I guess the mistakes it makes are pretty honest ones."
"Perhaps," said McCarthy stubbornly. "But why all this mumbo-jumbo business?"
"It doesn't affect you, does it?"
"The trouble is, it does," said McCarthy, with a laugh. "Do you know what I ought to do?"
"What?"