Hugh heard the story and couldn't understand it. Everybody seemed to take it for granted that he would be bid. Why didn't they take it equally for granted that Carl would be bid as well? He thought perhaps it was because he was an athlete and Carl wasn't; but the truth was, of course, that the upper-classmen perceived the nouveau riche quality in Carl quite as clearly as he did himself. He knew that his money and the fact that he had gone to a fashionable prep school would bring him bids, but would they be from the right fraternities? That was the all-important question.
Those last three days of rushing were nerve-racking. At night the invited freshmen—and that meant about two thirds of the class—were at the fraternity houses until eleven; between classes and during every free hour they were accosted by earnest fraternity men, each presenting the superior merits of his fraternity. The fraternity men were wearier than the freshmen. They sat up until the small hours every morning discussing the freshmen they had entertained the night before.
Hugh was in a daze. Over and over he heard the same words with only slight variations. A fraternity man would slap a fat book with an excited hand and exclaim: "This is 'Baird's Manual,' the final authority on fraternities, and it's got absolutely all the dope. You can see where we stand. Sixty chapters! You don't join just this one, y' understand; you join all of 'em. You're welcome wherever you go." Or, if the number of chapters happened to be small, "Baird's Manual" was referred to again. "Only fifteen chapters, you see. We don't take in new chapters every time they ask. We're darned careful to know what we're signing up before we take anybody in." The word "aristocratic" was carefully avoided, but it was just as carefully suggested.
It seemed to Hugh that he was shown a photograph of every fraternity house in the country. "Look," he would be told by his host, "look at that picture to the right of the fireplace. That's our house at Cornell. Isn't it the darb? And look at that one. It's our house at California. Some palace. They've got sunken gardens. I was out there last year to our convention. The boys certainly gave us a swell time."
All this through a haze of tobacco smoke and over the noise of a jazz orchestra and the chatter of a dozen similar conversations. Hugh was excited but not really interested. The Nu Deltas invited him to their house every evening, but they were not making a great fuss over him. Perhaps they weren't going to give him a bid.... Well, he'd go some other fraternity. No, he wouldn't, either. Maybe the Nu Delta's would bid him later after he'd done something on the track.
Although actual pledging was not supposed to be done until Saturday night, Hugh was receiving what amounted to bids all that day and the night before. Several times groups of fraternity men got into a room, closed the door, and then talked to him until he was almost literally dizzy. He was wise enough not to make any promises. His invariable answer was: "I don't know yet. I won't know until Saturday night."
Carl was having similar experiences, but neither of them had been talked to by Nu Deltas. The president of the chapter, Merle Douglas, had said to Hugh in passing, "We've got our eye on you, Carver," and that was all that had been said. Carl did not have even that much consolation. But he wasn't so much interested in Nu Delta as Hugh was; Kappa Zeta or Alpha Sigma would do as well. Both of these fraternities were making violent efforts to get Hugh, but they were paying only polite attention to Carl.
On Friday night Hugh was given some advice that he had good reason to remember in later years. At the moment it did not interest him a great deal.
He had gone to the Delta Sigma Delta house, not because he had the slightest interest in that fraternity but because the Nu Deltas had not urged him to remain with them. The Delta Sigma Deltas welcomed him enthusiastically and turned him over to their president, Malcolm Graham, a tall serious senior with sandy hair and quiet brown eyes.
"Will you come up-stairs with me, Carver? I want to have a talk with you," he said simply.