Page:Harvey O'Higgins--Don-a-dreams.djvu/77

 used in their social relations with one another. And Don, looking up from his work, saw anew the distance that had widened between them, and could not speak across it.

"I'm not plugging," he tried to defend himself. "I'm reading outside of my course."

"Rats!" Conroy retorted. "That's what they always say."

Don rearranged his books impatiently. "That cant about the college spirit is a trifle stale itself."

"Oh, is it?... You have a cheek to accuse me of canting."

"You shouldn't accuse me of being a plug."

"I didn't."

Don's hand trembled as he turned up his lamp. He was not timid in a quarrel, but he was afraid of making a violent end of this friendship that was already too weak to bear the slightest rupture. He did not speak.

Conroy turned his back on the table and stood frowning disgustedly at the shabby discomfort of the room. "We should have gone into Residence," he said, "instead of coming to this hole.... If I can get a room there, will you come?"

"I can't afford it. Can't you get one of the other boys to take a room with you?"

"I don't know," Conroy answered. "I might."

He had, in fact, already talked the matter over with a sophomore, who had advised him to join "the Residence gang" if he wished a place in the football team; and Don guessed as much from the tone in