Page:Dorothy Canfield - Rough-hewn.djvu/279

 After they had had their laugh out, Gregg said, "Doesn't he think he's a heller?"

"Wants us to think so," grunted Neale. "Where's all the Gang?"

"Oh, some of them are boning for the exams, and some are chasing chippies, and Billy Peters is off on some of his usual footless fussing. Been calling on a girl all winter and I don't believe he's even had his arm around her yet, except at dances. The kid!"

Neale filled his pipe, held the match over it and puffed gently until the tobacco glowed an even red all over the top. What would Gregg say, he wondered, to his attitude towards Miss Wentworth? And Gregg himself! Neale knew perfectly well Gregg wrote long, weekly letters to that innocent-faced up-state girl whose picture stood on the dresser over there. He also knew perfectly well that Gregg was a regular Sir Galahad when it came to her. Oh, Lord! How like that blatant idiot Robertson, they were! It made him feel like a fool kid himself, the bluff they always kept up. Weren't they getting grown-up enough to drop this inside-out hypocrisy?

He kept all this to himself, smoking in thoughtful silence. When the pipe was finished, he yawned and stretched, "Guess I'll turn in. Going to read all night?"

Gregg looked up from his book, "I'll put the shade over the light so you can get to sleep. I want to finish this Philosophy A stuff, Plato's Republic. Have you read the last book yet? It's great dope!"

The next day Neale and Miss Wentworth were sitting by their little gipsy fire in a nook among the Palisades, over-looking the river. Luncheon had long been finished, the dishes packed away, and they continued to sit still, Miss Wentworth looking at the view, Neale looking at her and turning over in his mind the problem, "How can a man with no money, and no prospects of ever earning any, ask a girl to marry him? He can't. But suppose there's a chance that the girl … well, no matter what she may be thinking, wouldn't it be the decent thing to let her know how he feels? Of course he