"You know life's real to those fellows," he continued, with more animation. "They're after something in this world; they believe in something; they're fighting for something. There's nothing real in me--that is, there wasn't. By George, these two weeks that I've gone about, looking for the men in the class, have opened up everything to me. I never knew my own country before. It's a wonderful country! It's the simple lives that are so wonderful." [Illustration: "'LIFE'S REAL TO THOSE FELLOWS; THEY'RE FIGHTING FOR SOMETHING'"--_Page 254._] She had in her hand a piece of embroidery, but she did not embroider. Her eyes never left his face. For the first time, the rôles were reversed: it was he who talked and she who listened. From time to time she nodded, satisfied at the decision and direction in his character, which had answered the first awakening suggestion. "Who is Pike?" she asked. "Pike is a little fellow from a little life in some country town in Indiana; the only one in a family of eight children that's amounted to anything--father's a pretty even sort, I guess; so are the rest of them. But this fellow has a dogged persistence--not so quick at thinking things out, but, Lord! how he listens; nothing gets away from him. I can see him growing right under my eyes. He's interested in politics, same as Regan; wants to go back and get a newspaper some day. He'll do it, too. Why, that fellow has been racing ahead ever since he came here, and I've been standing still. Ricketts is an odd character, a sort of Yankee genius, shrewd, and some of his observations are as sharp as a knife. Brockhurst has the brains of us all; he can out-think us every one. But he's a spectator; he's outside looking on. I can't quite get used to him. Regan's the fellow I want for a friend. He's like an old Roman. When he makes up his mind--it takes him a long while--when he does, he's right." He recounted Regan's ideas on politics--his enthusiasm, and his ideal of a college life that would reflect the thought of the nation. Then, talking to himself, he began to walk up and down, flinging out quick, stiff gestures: "Brockhurst states a thing in such a slap-bang way--no compromise--that it hits you at first like a blow. But when you think it over he has generally got to the point. Where he's wrong is, he thinks the society system here keeps a man wrapped in cotton, smothering him and separating him from the class. Now, I'm an example to the contrary. It's all a question of the individual. I thought it wasn't at one moment, but now I know that it is. You can do just what you want--find what you want.