Part 8 (1/2)

”Unfortunately,” commented Roberts, drily, ”the att.i.tude of a student to the Greeks is a good deal like that of woman to man. She can't marry until she is asked. I was likewise never sufficiently urged.”

”In that case,” laughed Armstrong, ”I'll have to acquit you on that count. There wasn't, however, anything to prevent you warming up socially. No student has to be asked to do that. You and Elice, for instance, took your courses at the same time. Normally you would have met at social doings on a hundred occasions; and still you have never really done so until to-night, several years after you were graduated. You can't square yourself on that score.”

”No,” acquiesced Roberts with judicial slowness; ”and still a man with one suit of clothes and that decidedly frayed at the seams labors under appreciable social disadvantages even in a democratic university.” He smiled, a tolerant, reminiscent smile. ”I recall partic.i.p.ating tentatively a bit early in my career, but the result was not entirely a success. My stock went below par with surprising rapidity; so I took it off the market.”

Armstrong glanced at the listening girl swiftly. Purposely he was trying to draw the other man out--and for her benefit. But whatever the girl was thinking her face was non-committal. He returned to the attack.

”All right,” he s.h.i.+fted easily; ”we'll pa.s.s charge number two likewise.

One thing at least, however, you'll admit you could have done. You might have taken up athletics. You were asked often enough, I know personally--nature did a lot for you in some things; and as for clothes--the fewer you have in athletics the better. You could have mixed there and warmed up to your heart's content. Isn't it so?”

This time Roberts laughed.

”I was engaged in athletics--all the time I was in the University,” he refuted.

”The deuce you were! I never knew before--All right, I bit. How was that, Darley?”

”Simple enough, I'm sure,” drily. ”I venture the proposition that I sawed more wood and stoked more furnaces during my course than any other student that ever matriculated. I had four on the string constantly.”

Armstrong sank back in his chair lazily.

”All right, Darley,” he accepted; ”when you won't be serious there's no use trying to make you so. I surrender.”

”Serious!” Roberts looked at the younger man peculiarly. ”Serious!” he echoed low. ”That's just where your diagnosis fails, my friend. It's the explanation as well why I never did those 'other things,' as you call them, that students do and so humanize themselves.” Involuntarily his eyes went to the girl's face, searched it with a glance. ”It is, I suppose, the curse of my life: the fact that I can't be different. I seem to be incapable of digressing, even if I want to.”

For answer Armstrong smiled his sceptical smile; but the girl did not notice. Instead, for the first time, she asked a question.

”And you still think to digress, to enjoy oneself, is not serious, Mr.

Roberts?” she asked.

”No, emphatically not. I'm human, I hope, even if I haven't been humanized. I think enjoyment of life by the individual is its chief end.

It's nature.”

”But you said--”

”Pardon me,” quickly; ”I couldn't have made myself clear then. We're each of us a law unto himself, Miss Gleason. What is pleasure to me, perhaps, is not pleasure to you. I said I was never asked to join a fraternity.

It's true. It's equally true, though, that I wouldn't have joined had I been asked. So with the social side. I wouldn't have been a society man if I'd had a new dress suit annually and a valet to keep it pressed. I simply was not originally bent that way. Killing time, politely called recreation, merely fails to afford me pleasure. For that reason I avoid it. I claim no credit for so doing. It's not consecration to duty at all, it's pure selfishness. I'm as material as a steam engine. My pleasure comes from doing things; material things, practical things. For a given period of time my pleasure is in being able to point to a given object accomplished and say to myself: there, 'Darley, old man, you started out to do it and you've done it.' Is that clear, Miss Gleason?”

”And if you don't accomplish it, what then?” commented Armstrong.

”I shall at least have tried,” returned the other, carelessly. ”I can call the attention of Saint Peter to that fact.”

Armstrong leaned back farther in his chair. His eyes sought the ceiling whimsically.

”That would naturally bring up the old problem,” he philosophized, ”of whether it were better to attempt to do a thing and fail or not to make the attempt and retain one's self-confidence.”

In her place the girl s.h.i.+fted restlessly, as though the digression annoyed her.

”To return to the starting point,” she said, ”you think the greatest pleasure in life is in action, not in pa.s.sive sensation? We lazy folks--”