black cows,” at the drug-store. And, with a stab of failure, with regret, with pain at his social deficiency, he had watched their hot campaigns for the favor of some desirable freshman—some one vastly more elegant than himself, some one with blood and with money. They were only the sons of the little rich men, the lords of the village and county, but as he saw them go so surely, with such laughing unconstraint, in well-cut clothes, well-groomed, well-brushed, among the crowd of humbler students, who stiffened awkwardly with peasant hostility and constraint, —they were the flower of chivalry, the sons of the mansion-house. They were Sydney, Raleigh, Nash. And now, like gentlemen, they were going to war.
The gymnasium was thick with the smell of steam and of sweating men coming in to the showers from the playing fields. Washed, with opened shirt, Eugene walked slowly away into the green budding shade of the campus, companioned by an acquaintance, Ralph Hendrix.
“Look!” said Ralph Hendrix, in a low angry tone. “Look at that, will you!” He nodded toward a group of students ahead. “That little Horse’s Neck is booting the Dekes all over the campus.”
Eugene looked, then turned to examine the bitter common face beside him. Every Saturday night, after the meeting of the literary society, Ralph Hendrix went to the drug-store and bought two cheap cigars. He had bent narrow shoulders, a white knobby face, and a low forehead. He spoke in a monotonous painful drawl. His father was foreman in a cotton mill.
“They’re all Horse’s Necks,” he said. “They can go to hell before I’ll boot to get in.”
“Yes,” said Eugene.
But he wanted to get in. He wanted to be urbane and careless. He wanted to wear well-cut clothes. He wanted to be a gentleman. He wanted to go to war.
On the central campus, several students who had been approved by the examining board, descended from the old dormitories, bearing packed valises. They turned down under the trees, walking toward the village street. From time to time they threw up an arm in farewell.
