the world has happened?"

"You went away and gave me a chance to think," Hamlen replied seriously.
"Do you know, Huntington, I'm convinced that there ought to be a law
condemning every human being to solitary confinement for a certain
period each year, to make him think. Deprive him of his companions, his
books, his writing materials--everything, and just force him to think.
We take things so much for granted, we accept so many half-truths, we so
easily lose our sense of proportion."

"That is a capital idea, but you've done your share of it already."

"My thoughts were misdirected. You not only gave me the opportunity but
something basic on which to build. I wonder if you realize how
pitilessly you laid me bare!"

"I had no intention, my dear fellow--"

"Oh, it was right; that was the very thing which saved me. I was sincere
in feeling myself sunk in degradation, in wanting to end it all, and I
hated you for standing in my way. But when you laid claim to my life,
which I valued so slightly, I began to analyze it to discover why you
cared to have it. You have done more for me, Huntington, than any human
being ever did for a fellow-creature, and why you did it was past my
comprehension."

"We are bound by ties of a great brotherhood," Huntington explained.

"No man I ever saw before has considered them so sacred. You are an
idealist, Huntington. Your devotion to college and to college
responsibilities amounts to a fetish. But I thank God for your idealism:
it is not what college relations really are but what they ought to be!"

"I never will admit that, Hamlen."

"Of course you won't; if you did you would lose your idealism. I saw all
this, and it gave me my explanation: what you have done for me,
Huntington, you would have done for any other college man under the
same circumstances. It was not because of any claim the individual had
upon you, but rather the acknowledgment of the greater appeal made by
that brotherhood you venerate."

"No, Hamlen; you must not depreciate the appeal which your own
personality made from the first."

"I don't depreciate it,--I'm proud of it; but to understand your
idolatrous worship of the brotherhood makes it possible for me to accept
the heavy obligations under which you place me. When you left me I felt
that you must hate the sight of my haggard face, the sound of my
complaining voice, the burden of silly weakness which I foisted upon
your generous shoulders."

"I understo