"My dear fellow!" Huntington expostulated hastily, "forgive me for touching on so tender a subject; yet I am glad I did, for it is only fair that you let me set you right. The college world is a small one, and its citizens are young, untried boys. They are sometimes selfish and cruel and unreasonable without meaning it, while they are enjoying what is to most of them their first freedom, and they are trying to conduct themselves like full-grown men. There are heartburns which at the time seem tragedies. Then the undeveloped citizens of this little world, the biggest of them, pass out into the great world, for which the college life is only a training-school, and become infinitesimal parts of it. There the ratio becomes readjusted. What seemed essentials—like the clubs, for instance, or athletics—become non-essentials as the men look back upon them; become simply pleasant memories of delightful companionship. The next few years represent the real trying-out period, and each member of the Class measures up his fellow-members by what they have done since college. The mere fact of being members of the same Class is the bond. I don't care what you did in college, Hamlen; but I sha'n't let you get away from me until you tell me what you've done since, or until you promise that I shall see you when next you come to Boston. The fact that I didn't know you in college makes me the more keen to know you now."
"I thank you a thousand times!" Mrs. Thatcher cried impulsively. "What you have said in five minutes will do more to set Mr. Hamlen right than weeks of argument from me. I found him to-day in a veritable paradise which he has built here, and where he has lived alone practically since he left college. I am trying to persuade him to come back into the world again, and you can help me to accomplish it."
Hamlen was visibly affected by Huntington's cordiality. "This has been a bewildering day," he said. "For over twenty years I have lived alone, nursing a resentment toward college and life in general until it has come to be a religion. This afternoon Mrs. Thatcher finds me unexpectedly and begins to batter down my defenses; now Mr. Huntington, without realizing it, attempts to complete the demolition. Don't wonder that I'm not myself to-night; but I thank my classmate for what he has said, just as I thank Mrs. Thatcher for her earlier efforts."
"Mr. Huntington," Thatcher remarked, "you have given Stevens and me a new idea of the value of a college degree. I wasn't especially keen about having my boy go to college, but now, by George! I wouldn't have it otherwise."
"Huntington is a living propagandum for Harvard," Cosden said lightly, realizing the desirability of leading the conversation into a less serious channel. "My degree represents simply an additional tool to use in carving out success, to him it means idolatry. If Huntington's house was on fire, I should expect to see him climbing down the firemen's ladder in his pink pajamas with his precious sheepskin under his arm carried as tenderly as a mother would a child."
"Oh, you may make light of it," Huntington replied good-naturedly, "but Hamlen and I are treading on sacred ground. The one weakness of college life is that the opportunities it offers come before we are competent to appreciate or embrace them. That is what brings about the condition which he has misunderstood. It would be much better if we all could have two years of college when we're seventeen and the other two when we're forty."
The conversation drifted into smoother channels, but by the time the party separated the acquaintance had developed to a point far beyond an ordinary first meeting. Underneath it different elements were at work in each one's mind and heart, put in motion by the unexpected intensity of almost the earliest words which had been exchanged. Hamlen was the first to leave. He said good-night casually to the group, but managed to separate Huntington from the others.
"You have done much for one of your classmates to-night," he said simply. "I thank you for it."
"Nonsense!" Huntington protested. "I'm more than delighted to have this opportunity to know you—and I want to know you better."
"Will you come to my villa some day this week?"