George glanced at her hand. He had a whimsical impulse to reach out for it, to close his eyes, to be led.
Heavy feet hurried behind the little group. A voice filled with rancour and disgust cried out:
"You standing here without blankets just to enjoy the autumn breezes? You ought to have better sense, Mr. Bailly."
"It's my fault, Green," Betty laughed.
"That's different," the trainer admitted, gallantly. "You can't expect a woman to have much sense. Get to the showers now, and on the run."
Goodhue and George trotted off.
"I didn't know you were a friend of Betty Alston's," Goodhue said.
George didn't answer. Goodhue didn't say anything else.
XII
Often after those long, pounding afternoons George returned to his room, wondering dully, as he had done last summer, why the deuce he did it. Sylvia's picture stared the same answer, and he would turn with a sigh to one of the novels Bailly loaned him regularly. Bailly was of great value there, too, for he chose the books carefully, and George was commencing to learn that as a man reads so is he very likely to think. Whenever he spoke now he was careful to modulate his voice, to choose his words, never to be heard without a reason.