"Bah." Burbank was contemptuous. "They've read a lot of books, that's all. Most of them never had an idea in their lives. Oh, I know that some of them think; if they didn't, I'd leave college to-morrow. It's men like Davis and Maxwell and Henley and Jimpson who keep me here. But most of the profs can't do anything more than spout a few facts that they've got out of books. No, they don't know any more about it than we do. We don't know why we're here or where we're going or what we ought to do while we are here. And we get into groups and tell smutty stories and talk about women and religion, and we don't know any more than when we started. Think of all the talk that goes on around this college about sex. There's no end to it. Some of the fellows say positively there's no sense in staying straight; and a few, damn few, admit that they think a fellow ought to leave women alone, but most of them are in a muddle." He rose and stretched. "I've got to be going--philosophy quiz to-morrow." He smiled. "I don't agree with Nutter, and I don't agree with George, and I don't agree with you, Don; and the worst of it is that I don't agree with myself. You fellows can bull about this some more if you want to; I've got to study." "No, they can't," said Ross. "Not here, anyway. I've got to study, too. The whole of you'll have to get out." The boys rose and stretched. Ferguson rolled lazily off the couch. "Well," he said with a yawn, "this has been very edifying. I've heard it all before in a hundred bull sessions, and I suppose I'll hear it all again. I don't know why I've hung around. There's a little dame that I've got to write a letter to, and, believe me, she's a damn sight more interesting than all your bull." He strolled out of the door, drawling a slow "good night" over his shoulder. Hugh went to his room and thought over the talk. He was miserably confused. Like Ferguson he had believed everything that his father and mother--and the minister--had told him, and he found himself beginning to discard their ideas. There didn't seem to be any ideas to put in the place of those he discarded. Until Carl's recent confidence he had believed firmly in chastity, but he discovered, once the first shock had worn off, that he liked Carl the unchaste just as much as he had Carl the chaste. Carl seemed neither better nor worse for his experience. He was lashed by desire; he was burning with curiosity--and yet, and yet something held him back. Something--he hardly knew what it was--made him avoid any woman who had a reputation for moral laxity. He shrank from such a woman--and desired her so intensely that he was ashamed. Life was suddenly becoming very complicated, more complicated, it seemed, every day. With other undergraduates he discussed women and religion endlessly, but he never reached any satisfactory conclusions. He wished that he knew some professor that he could talk to. Surely some of them must know the answers to his riddles.... CHAPTER XVI