e Fairfax Lee. He had
tarried in the campus long enough to be sure that Winnie Lee was again
enjoying the processional festivities from one of the dormitory windows.

"Nobody will know whether I am in that procession or not," he muttered,
as he started toward Lee's. "And if they do know, what is the
difference? I'm under no obligation to be there, and I can say that I
had a headache, or anything else I want to, if I choose to take the
trouble to account for my absence."

To Pike's great satisfaction, he found Fairfax Lee at home; and when he
told the servant that he had an important communication to make, he was
invited into the waiting-room, and finally was ushered into the presence
of Mr. Lee.

The facing of Mr. Lee in this manner, even though he could claim
disinterested motives, rather phased even the blunted spirit of Donald
Pike. If he had dared to, he would have committed his story to writing,
and so brought it to Lee's attention. But things that are written often
have an unpleasant way of reappearing, to the discomfiture and undoing
of the writer, and Pike's caution warned him against such risks. Words
merely spoken, he assured himself, can be denied, if that becomes
afterward necessary. Written words, undestroyed, cannot be so easily
escaped.

"Anything I can do for you?" Mr. Lee queried, when Pike hesitated. "You
have a communication, I believe?"

Donald pulled himself together, and the opening sentences of what he
intended to say came back to him. He had thought these out with care,
and they seemed very fine and even humanitarian.

"I want you to know at the outset, Mr. Lee, that in coming to you with
the information I bear I am wholly disinterested. But the truth is due
you. No one else seems to have had the courage to tell you, and I
shall."

Fairfax Lee began to look interested.

"You are very kind," he said, "and I thank you in advance for your
favor."

This was so auspicious a beginning that Pike's courage rose.

"I want to have a frank talk with you about a certain young Yale
man--Mr. Buck Badger. You must have noticed that he is very devoted in
his attentions to your daughter?"

There was no reply to this, though Pike halted, in the expectation that
there would be one.

"I am well acquainted with Badger. In fact, until very recently, he was
my roommate, and we were good friends. Perhaps when I tell you that he
is not a fit man to associate with your daughter, you may think I am led
by