Finally he protested. "What's the matter, Janet?" he asked gently. "Don't you love me?"
"Of course," she answered calmly in her small flute-like voice; "of course I love you, but you are so rough. You mustn't kiss me hard like that; it isn't nice."
Nice! Hugh felt as if she had slapped his face. Then he knew that she didn't understand at all. He tried to excuse her by telling himself that she was just a child—she was within a year of his own age—and that she would love him the way he did her when she grew older; but down in his heart he sensed the fact that she wasn't capable of love, that she merely wanted to be petted and caressed as a child did. The shadows and the moonlight did not move her as they did him, and she thought that he was silly when he said that he could hear a song in the night breeze. She had said that his poem was very pretty. That was all. Well, maybe it wasn't a very good poem, but it had—well, it had—it had something in it that wasn't just pretty.
He began to visit the lake less often and to wish that September and the opening of college would arrive. When the day finally came to return, he was almost as much excited as he had been the year before. Gosh! it would be good to see Carl again. The bum had written only once. Yeah, and Pudge Jamieson, too, and Larry Stillwell, and Bill Freeman, and—yes, by golly! Merton Billings. He'd be glad to see old Fat Billings. He wondered if Merton was as fat as ever and as pure. And all the brothers at the Nu Delta house. He'd been too busy to get really acquainted with them last year; but this year, by gosh, he'd get to know all of them. It certainly would be great to be back and be a sophomore and make the little frosh stand around.
He didn't carry his suit-case up the hill this time; he checked it and sent a freshman for it later. When he arrived at Surrey 19 Carl was already there—and he was kneeling before a trunk when Hugh walked into the room. Both of them instantly remembered the identical scene of the year before.
Carl jumped to his feet. "Hullo—who are you?" he demanded, his face beaming.
Hugh pretended to be frightened and shy. "I'm Hugh Carver. I—I guess I'm going to room with you."
"You sure are!" yelled Carl, jumping over the trunk and landing on Hugh. "God! I'm glad to see you. Put it there." They shook hands and stared at each other with shining eyes.
Then they began to talk, interrupting each other, gesticulating, occasionally slapping each other violently on the back or knee, shouting with laughter as one of them told of a summer experience that struck them as funny. They were both so glad to get back to college, so glad to see each other, that they were almost hysterical. And when they left Surrey 19 arm in arm on their way to the Nu Delta house "to see the brothers," their cup of bliss was full to the brim and running over.
"Criminy, the ol' campus sure does look good," said Hugh ecstatically. "Watch the frosh work." He was suddenly reminded of something. "Hey, freshman!" he yelled at a big, red-faced youngster who was to be full-back on the football team a year hence.