Hamlen hesitated before making reply, then he returned Huntington's look with a frankness which conveyed much. His eye was clear and responsive now; the haunting terror had left it. He met the question squarely. "Until this moment," he said, "I supposed myself sincere in believing that my interest lay wholly in having that boy come through victorious, but as you put it to me now I know there is a reason which lies deeper still. Thanks to you, dear friend, notes in my life which have always before been mute have now been struck, and I am finding a wonderful joy in the melody produced. I have awakened to my heritage, and I realize what I have missed in denying myself its privileges. I want Harvard to win, Huntington, because it's Harvard. I shall always want Harvard to win for the same reason. It may be better for the sport to have the victories alternate, it may be impossible to defend anything so selfish as a desire for an unbroken line of victories for years to come; but still I want it. There is no occasion to argue it, there is no logic to support it; I just simply want it!" Huntington regarded him with a satisfaction too deep for outward exuberance. "I knew the spirit was too strong to accept limitations!" he exclaimed quietly but with an exultant ring in his voice. "I knew that no man could once place himself within the influence of college ideals and not recognize their existence. You have tested my convictions, Hamlen, but my faith has remained 'calm rising through change and through storm.'" The strength of Huntington's emotion impressed Hamlen deeply. His own dawning was so recent that at first he could not believe it possible for his friend to be so affected by the subject under discussion. "Do other Harvard men feel as strongly as you do?" he demanded questioningly. "Of course," Huntington replied; "but it isn't a question of Harvard any more than of other colleges. We shout for our Alma Mater, but no more lustily than the Yale or the Princeton man or the men of the smaller colleges shout for theirs. It is merely the expression of the spirit of loyalty and the sense of obligation, Hamlen. Not to express it is unnatural, not to feel gratified when another laurel wreath is placed upon the brow of our Dear Mother is a lack of filial devotion which I refuse to believe exists."