ty still at the university, dozing through recitations, or
lounging about the corridors, in a blue serge suit and a sweater with a
C on it, waiting for some other girl to come out of her class-room; and
that between the hours of ten-fifteen and eleven, it was altogether
likely that she'd find him again, as she had so many times in the past,
at his fraternity house, going through the motions of getting up an
eleven o'clock recitation. It was absurd enough now to find herself
calling the old number and asking again for Mr. Haines. The dreamlike
unreality of it grew stronger, when the voice that answered said, "Just
a minute," and then bellowed out his old nickname--"Hello, Tiny! Phone!"
and, after a wait, she heard his own very deep bass.

"Hello. What is it?"

"Hello, Harry," she said. "This is Rose Aldrich. Do you remember
me?--Rose Stanton, you know."

The ensuing silence was so long, that she said "Hello" again to make
sure that he was still there.

"Y--yes," he said. "Of--of course I haven't forgotten. I--I only ...
I ..."

She wondered what he was so embarrassed about, but to save the
situation, she interrupted.

"Are you going to be awfully busy this afternoon? Because, if you
aren't, there's something you can do for me. You're in the law school
this year, aren't you?"

"Yes," he said. "Of course I'm not busy at all."

"It'll take quite a little while," she warned him, "an hour or so, and I
don't want to interfere with anything you've got to do."

Again he assured her that he hadn't anything.

"Well, then," she said rather dubiously, because his voice sounded still
so constrained and unnatural, "I'll come down in the car and pick you up
about half past one. Is that all right?"

"Yes," he said. "Yes, of course. Thank you very much."

Had inclination led Rose to do a little imaginative thinking about the
half-back, from his own point of view, she might, without much trouble,
have approximated the cause of his embarrassment.

Here is a poor but honest young man, who has devoted himself, heart,
brain and good right arm, to the service of a beautiful young fellow
student at the university. They must wait for each other, of course,
until he can graduate and get admitted to the bar and make a success
that will enable him to support her as she deserves to be supported. The
girl declines to wait. A much older man--a great, trampling brute of a
man, possessed of wealth and fame, and a social altitude positive