been in your
mind all along. I'd pound a little common-sense and decency into you,
only I wouldn't feel clean after doing it."

That, to an extent, broke down his severity. It sounded queer, from him.
If Lambert Planter could have heard him say that!

"Let the others think they've done us a good turn," he went on. "We have
to live in the same class without clawing each other's faces every time
we meet, but you can't pull the wool over my eyes, and I won't try to
pull it over yours. Now get out, and don't come here alone again."

He felt better and cleaner after that. When Dalrymple had gone he
finished his chapter and tumbled into bed.

XVIII

George was glad of the laundry, indeed, as the holidays approached. It
gave him a sound excuse for not dashing joyously from Princeton with the
rest, but it didn't cure the depression with which he saw the college
empty. He wandered about a campus as deserted as a city swept by
pestilence, asking himself what he would have done if his father and
mother hadn't exiled him as thoroughly as Old Planter had. There was no
point thinking about that; it wasn't even a question. He took long walks
or stayed in his room, reading, and once or twice answering regretfully
invitations that had sprung from encounters at Betty's party. It was
nice to have them, but of course he couldn't go to such affairs alone
just yet. Besides, he didn't have the money.

Squibs Bailly limped all the way up his stairs one day, scolding him for
sulking in his tent.

"I only heard last night that you were in town. I'm not psychic. Why
haven't you been around?"

"I didn't want to bother----"

Bailly interrupted him.

"I'm afraid I didn't appreciate you went quite so much alone."

"Altogether alone," George said. "But I don't want anybody to feel sorry
for me because of that. It has some advantages."

"You're too young to say such things," Bailly said.

He made George go to the Dickinson Street house for Christmas dinner.
There was no other guest. The rooms were bright with holly, and a very
small but dazzling Christmas tree stood in a corner, bearing a gift for
him. Mrs. Bailly, as he entered, touched his cheek with her lips and
welcomed him by his first name. She created for him an illusion that
made him choke a trifle. She made him feel as if he had come home.

"And," he thought, "Squibs and she know."

He wondered if it was that knowledge that made Squibs go into his social
views one evening