A moment the man waited, expecting an answer, a denial, something; when nothing came he put on his hat with meaning deliberation.
“I repeat I’m very glad you told me, though, even if I do have to readjust things a bit.” He shrugged his shoulders. Despite the wounded egotism that was urging him on, it was the first real cloud that had arisen on the horizon of their engagement and he was acutely self-conscious. “Rest assured, however, that I shall consider your point of view before I say yes or no to Graham. Just now—” He halted, cleared his throat needlessly; abruptly, without completing the sentence or giving a backward glance, he started down the walk. “Good-night, Elice,” he said.
CHAPTER III
PLEASURE
“The trouble with you, Darley,” said Armstrong, “is that you took your course in the University in too big doses. You went on the principle that if a little grinding is good for a man a perpetual dig must be a great deal better.” He was in the best of humor this Sunday night, and smiled at the other genially. “A college course is a good deal like strychnine. Taken in small doses over a long period of time it is a great tonic. Swallowed all at once—you know what happens.”
From her place in a big easy chair Elice Gleason watched with interest the result of the badinage, but Roberts himself made no comment.
“You started in,” continued Armstrong, “to do six years’ work in four—and did it. You were a human grinding machine and you ground very fine, that I’ll admit; but in doing so you missed a lot that was more valuable, a lot that 57 while it doesn’t make credit figures in the sum total of university atmosphere.”
“For instance?” suggested the other, laconically.