fair assumption of
ease. "Why didn't you come back sooner?" He was pleased with that
speech. He wouldn't have dared it a month before.

The brown eyes smiled at him. "Because I didn't know you were here. You
haven't got a cigarette about you, have you? Norry's useless when it
comes to smokes."

Hugh did have a package of cigarettes. She took one, put it in her
mouth, and waited for Hugh to light it for her. When he did, she gazed
curiously over the flame at him. She puffed the cigarette for a moment
and then said, "You look like a good egg. Let's talk." She threw herself
down on the sand, and the boys sat down beside her.

From that moment Hugh was lost. For the remaining days of the visit he
spent every possible moment with Cynthia, fascinated by her chatter,
thrilled by the touch of her hand. She made no objection when he offered
shyly to kiss her; she quietly put her arms around his neck and turned
her face up to his--and her kisses set him aflame.

For once, he did not want to return to college, and when he arrived in
Haydensville he felt none of his usual enthusiasm. The initiation of the
freshmen amused him only slightly, and the football games did not seem
so important as they had the two previous years. A letter from Cynthia
was the most important thing in the world, and she wrote good letters,
chatty, gay, and affectionate.

Custom made it necessary for him to room in the fraternity house. It was
an unwritten law of Nu Delta that all members live in the house their
last two years, and Hugh hardly dared to contest the law. There were
four men in the chapter whom he thoroughly liked and with whom he would
have been glad to room, but they all had made their arrangements by the
time he spoke to them; so he was forced to accept Paul Vinton's
invitation to room with him.

Vinton was a cheerful youth with too much money and not enough sense. He
wanted desperately to be thought a good fellow, a "regular guy," and he
was willing to buy popularity if necessary by standing treat to any one
every chance he got. He was known all over the campus as a "prize
sucker."

He bored Hugh excessively by his confidences and almost offensive
generosity. He always had a supply of Scotch whisky on hand, and he
offered it to him so constantly that Hugh drank too much because it was
easier and pleasanter to drink than to refuse.

Tucker had graduated, and the new president, Leonard Gates, was an
altogether different sort of man.