"I know all about it," retorted Hayward with rising spirit; and he went into details in a way to take Jimmie's breath. Warming up, he did not desist on finishing the matter in dispute, but challenged others of Jimmie's audacious inaccuracies and proceeded to straighten them out. Jimmie demurred and replied more recklessly, and was soon in a rough and tumble discussion covering the whole field of college excellences. He found he was no match for Hayward either in information and enthusiasm or in assurance. Before the argument was half finished the footman was talking to him in a patronizing and fatherly way that pricked him like needles. He did not relish the idea of a controversy with, much less being routed by, this serving-man, especially in the presence of the young women. He wished the girls anywhere else so that he might smother the lackey with a sulphurous blast. But he had to stand to the losing game while Helen and her friends laughed at his defeat or waved the crimson flag and cheered the Harvard hits in a shrill treble. Helen indeed felt some compunctions for having brought about the situation but was enjoying Jimmie's discomfiture too much to end it.
Hayward had forgotten he was a lackey, had forgotten he was a negro, had forgotten he was anything save a Harvard man proud of his college, proclaiming her fair record with love and joy, confident in himself as one of her sons.... "As a man thinketh. so is he." ... The occasion was trivial, but the transforming power of thought, its triumph over circumstance, was strikingly evidenced in the footman's face. Helen noted that his bearing had lost every trace of conventional or conscious servility, that he looked easily and confidently a man, calling no man master.
After harrying Captain Jimmie enough to pay off all old scores they gave him good-bye with a final yell for the crimson, and turned the launch for home. In the run back Helen had her first opportunity to notice the pennant. It was not hers.
"Hayward, whose flag is this?"
"Mine, Miss Helen. I could not find your mother quickly, and I brought that to save time."
She looked from the flag to the negro. A nebulous idea floated through her mind, and she tried to fix it, but it was too elusive. She put Nell and Nancy off at their landings, and tried to grasp the intangible explanation that was hovering about her brain. It was characteristic of her to prefer working out her own answers to looking at them in the back of the book. Finally, however, she decided she did not have a full statement of the problem.
"When did you go to Harvard, Hayward?" she ventured.
"Class of 191-, Miss Helen."
"191-. Then you did not finish. The battle of Valencia was—"
"No, Miss Helen, I did not finish: but I understand two others of my class who volunteered were passed on the spring term's work and graduated by a special resolution of the Overseers. I think I will apply for my diploma sometime—if I need it."