rnal monotone that seemed to both of them infinitely
charming, infinitely new.

*****

June came and the days grew so hot and lazy that they could not worry
even about exams, but spent dreamy evenings on the court of Cottage,
talking of long subjects until the sweep of country toward Stony Brook
became a blue haze and the lilacs were white around tennis-courts, and
words gave way to silent cigarettes.... Then down deserted Prospect and
along McCosh with song everywhere around them, up to the hot joviality
of Nassau Street.

Tom D'Invilliers and Amory walked late in those days. A gambling fever
swept through the sophomore class and they bent over the bones till
three o'clock many a sultry night. After one session they came out of
Sloane's room to find the dew fallen and the stars old in the sky.

"Let's borrow bicycles and take a ride," Amory suggested.

"All right. I'm not a bit tired and this is almost the last night of the
year, really, because the prom stuff starts Monday."

They found two unlocked bicycles in Holder Court and rode out about
half-past three along the Lawrenceville Road.

"What are you going to do this summer, Amory?"

"Don't ask me--same old things, I suppose. A month or two in Lake
Geneva--I'm counting on you to be there in July, you know--then there'll
be Minneapolis, and that means hundreds of summer hops, parlor-snaking,
getting bored--But oh, Tom," he added suddenly, "hasn't this year been
slick!"

"No," declared Tom emphatically, a new Tom, clothed by Brooks, shod
by Franks, "I've won this game, but I feel as if I never want to play
another. You're all right--you're a rubber ball, and somehow it suits
you, but I'm sick of adapting myself to the local snobbishness of this
corner of the world. I want to go where people aren't barred because of
the color of their neckties and the roll of their coats."

"You can't, Tom," argued Amory, as they rolled along through the
scattering night; "wherever you go now you'll always unconsciously apply
these standards of 'having it' or 'lacking it.' For better or worse
we've stamped you; you're a Princeton type!"

"Well, then," complained Tom, his cracked voice rising plaintively, "why
do I have to come back at all? I've learned all that Princeton has to
offer. Two years more of mere pedantry and lying around a club aren't
going to help. They're just going to disorganize me, conventionalize me
completely. Even now I'm so spineless that I w