over the next
time he's frank."

"And will you tell me what he says?"

"Oh, I don't know about that." Jeff lay back in his chair at large ease
and chuckled. "I should like to tell you what he's just been saying to
me, but I don't believe I can."

"Do!"

"You know he was up at Lion's Head in February, and got a winter
impression of the mountain. Did you see it?"

"No. Was that what you were talking about?"

"We talked about something a great deal more interesting--the impression
he got of me."

"Winter impression."

"Cold enough. He had come to the conclusion that I was very selfish and
unworthy; that I used other people for my own advantage, or let them
use themselves; that I was treacherous and vindictive, and if I didn't
betray a man I couldn't be happy till I had beaten him. He said that if
I ever behaved well, it came after I had been successful one way or the
other."

"How perfectly fascinating!" Bessie rested her elbow on the corner
of the table, and her chin in the palm of the hand whose thin fingers
tapped her red lips; the light sleeve fell down and showed her pretty,
lean little forearm. "Did it strike you as true, at all?"

"I could see how it might strike him as true."

"Now you are candid. But go on! What did he expect you to do about it?"

"Nothing. He said he didn't suppose I could help it."

"This is immense," said Bessie. "I hope I'm taking it all in. How came
he to give you this flattering little impression? So hopeful, too! Or,
perhaps your frankness doesn't go any farther?"

"Oh, I don't mind saying. He seemed to think it was a sort of abstract
duty he owed to my people."

"Your-folks?" asked Bessie.

"Yes," said Jeff, with a certain dryness. But as her face looked blankly
innocent, he must have decided that she meant nothing offensive. He
relaxed into a broad smile. "It's a queer household up there, in the
winter. I wonder what you would think of it."

"You might describe it to me, and perhaps we shall see."

"You couldn't realize it," said Jeff, with a finality that piqued her.
He reached out for the bottle of apollinaris, with somehow the effect of
being in another student's room, and poured himself a glass. This would
have amused her, nine times out of ten, but the tenth time had come when
she chose to resent it.

"I suppose," she said, "you are all very much excited about Class Day at
Cambridge."

"That sounds like a remark made to open the way to conversation." Jeff