Page:Fidelia, (IA fidelia00balm).pdf/45

 institution of high or lower learning, as your tender eyes may possibly have observed and your keen little ears may, on occasion, have heard; they are beyond any doubt the finest girls in any college in this or any other country; far be it from me to nurture a knock at any one of them. However, I may say, with sufficient assurance, that something of an event occurred to-day. Some one in this college, not to say several, will never be the same after to-morrow."

"Men, you mean?" the freshman led him on. "Or girls?"

"Both, freshmen," assured Bill sententiously. "Both."

So Dave heard a good deal more of the red-haired girl; but, as his duty in regard to her was already in his mind, he paid no especial attention. To the usual query at the table: "How was everybody at home, Dave?" he gave the usual answer: "Fine, thanks." But that fight with his father kept bothering him; and his taking and putting up that ten thousand dollars, irrevocably, kept cutting across other thoughts. He went to his room, as soon as dinner was finished, and checked over his figures on his desk. They were estimates, mostly, calculations and expectations of costs and interest and overhead and of sales and transactions yet to be made and commissions and profits yet to be earned; but they reassured him and he whistled confidently when he put on his overcoat to go out.

He could go, now, to Alice; and this new overcoat of his—one he had bought in December and by far the best coat he had ever owned—brought to him one