"I think you understand now what I mean, Steve, unmistakably. I suppose, too, you think me selfish and artificial and horrid, and I shan't deny it. I am as I am and I want things. To pretend that I don't would be to lie--and I won't lie to you whatever happens. I simply won't. We both know what your place in the University means; I perhaps better than you, because I've seen my father's experience. I don't often get bitter, but I come very near it when I look back and think how my mother had to plan and scrimp. I feel like condemning the whole University to the bottomless pit. I suppose Margery Randall would resent it if I told her so, but honestly I pity her; the more so because I've always envied her in a way. She's not used to denying herself anything, and there's bound to be a reckoning. It's inevitable, and then--I don't like to think of how it will be then. It's a tragedy, Steve, nothing more or less." Opposite the man sat motionless in his place looking at her. All trace of his usual lounging attitude was absent. He was not even smoking. For almost a full minute after she was done he sat; then he arose abruptly. This time he did not offer to come over to her. "So this is the way you feel," he commented at last, slowly. "It's a new phase of you entirely, Elice, that I admit; but at least I'm glad to know it." He thrust his hands deep into his pockets. "In plain English, you'd barter my position and ambition gladly for--things. Frankly I didn't think that of you, Elice, before. I imagined I knew you better, knew different." Responsive, instinctively the girl started to rise. Her breath came quick. Swiftly following came second thought and she sank back, back into the shadow. She said nothing. 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."