Page:Harvey O'Higgins--Don-a-dreams.djvu/146

 bravado of college boys who take to cards and beer-bottles as a schoolboy takes to tobacco. But, after all, that was a part of the life which Conroy had chosen, and it was his own affair. He could fight his own battles. He had her to help him now!

"Well, my young man," the doctor said, "I am leaving you a tonic. Take more exercise with it and less books. You're not within fifteen pounds of your proper weight, and if I'm called in here again, I'll send you home to your parents. The day after to-morrow, if it's bright, you may go out of doors—and stay out." He took Don by the shoulders and shook him playfully. "The man who built this room didn't suppose anyone would be fool enough to try to live in it, do you understand?"

Don laughed.

"Well, if your eyes bother you, come and see me. Good-bye."

He passed through the doorway and out of Don's life, as doctors do.

She did not write. When he went out, he did not try to meet her. He returned to his old round of lectures, library studies, solitary walks and lonely evenings. He underlined, in his volume of Emerson's poems, the verse: