ey? Brothers! Brothers!

He fairly leaped out of his chair and began to pace the floor. College!
Gentlemen! A lot of muckers chasing around with a bunch of rats; that's
what they were. Great thing--fraternities. No doubt about it, they were
a great institution.

He paused in his mental tirade, suddenly conscious of the fact that he
wasn't fair. Some of the fraternities, he knew, would never stand for
any such performance as he had witnessed that evening; most of them, he
was sure, wouldn't. It was just the Nu Deltas and one or two others;
well, maybe three or four. So that's what he had joined, was it?

He thought of Hester Sheville, of her whisky breath, her lascivious
pawing--and his hands clenched. "Filthy little rat," he said aloud, "the
stinkin', rotten rat."

Then he remembered that there had been girls there who hadn't drunk
anything, girls who somehow managed to move through the whole orgy calm
and sweet. His anger mounted. It was a hell of a way to treat a decent
girl, to ask her to a dance with a lot of drunkards and soused rats.

He was warm with anger. Reckless of the buttons, he tore off his
waistcoat and threw it on a chair. The jeweled fraternity pin by the
pocket caught his eye. He stared at it for a moment and then slowly
unpinned it. He let it lie in his hand and addressed it aloud, hardly
aware of the fact that he was speaking at all.

"So that's what you stand for, is it? For snobs and politicians and
muckers. Well, I don't want any more of you--not--one--damn--bit--
more--of--you."

He tossed the pin indifferently upon the center-table, making up his
mind that he would resign from the fraternity the next day.

When the next day came he found, however, that his anger had somewhat
abated. He was still indignant, but he didn't have the courage to go
through with his resignation. Such an action, he knew, would mean a
great deal of publicity, publicity impossible to avoid. The fraternity
would announce its acceptance of his resignation in "The Sanford Daily
News"; and then he would either have to lie or start a scandal.

As the days went by and he thought more and more about the dance, he
began to doubt his indignation. Wasn't he after all a prude to get so
hot? Wasn't he perhaps a prig, a sissy? At times he thought that he was;
at other times he was sure that he wasn't. He could be permanently sure
of only one thing, that he was a cynic.

CHAPTER XX

Hugh avoided the Nu Delta house