said, “with a side-order of hash-brown potatoes, a dish of creamed carrots and peas, and a plate of hot biscuits. Also a cup of coffee.”
Eugene got back his heart again. He got it back fiercely and carelessly, with an eldritch wildness. During the remainder of his holiday, he plunged recklessly through the lively crowds, looking boldly but without insolence at the women and young girls. They grew unexpectedly out of the waste drear winter like splendid flowers. He was eager and alone. Fear is a dragon that lives among crowds—and in armies. It lives hardly with men who are alone. He felt released—beyond the last hedge of desperation.
Freed and alone, he looked with a boding detachment at all the possessed and possessing world about him. Life hung for his picking fingers like a strange and bitter fruit. THEY—the great clan huddled there behind the stockade for warmth and safety—could hunt him down some day and put him to death: he thought they would.
But he was not now afraid—he was content, if only the struggle might be fruitful. He looked among the crowds printed with the mark of his danger, seeking that which he might desire and take.
He went back to the university sealed up against the taunts of the young men: in the hot green Pullman they pressed about him with thronging jibe, but they fell back sharply, as fiercely he met them, with constraint.
There came and sat beside him Tom French, his handsome face vested in the hard insolence of money. He was followed by his court jester, Roy Duncan, the slave with the high hard cackle.
“Hello, Gant,” said Tom French harshly. “Been to Exeter lately?” Scowling, he winked at grinning Roy.
“Yes,” said Eugene, “I’ve been there lately, and I’m on my way there now. What’s it to you, French?”
Discomfited by this hard defiance, the rich man’s son drew back.
