Page:Meanwhile (1927).pdf/38

 berries and ices, Eric and Rhoda threading their way through it all, handsome, besieged, their laughter blending with the music and the chatter, conforming uncritically to the endless formalities. Often while ridiculing the conventions he had caught himself envying youths who ran arm-in-arm up the steps of exclusive club houses,—men like Dick Briarcliffe, the crack oarsman, and Garfield Pearn, who knew a lot about Confucius and Lao-Tse and certainly couldn't be charged with lack of brains. The envy was never of long duration, for he could reassure himself with the thought that within his breast burned something that all the Peperells and Briarcliffes and Pearns were devoid of, something too nearly divine in quality to be compatible with Conformity, something—well, what? There was the rub.

He would try to analyze and formulate the something in his letter to Geoffrey,—it was all bound up with salvation, and Europe. Meanwhile there was Pep leaning out the window and gurgling at the refrain of a ditty that came floating up:

"It's that wild ass Bruff," said Eric, making a thumbs-down sign to the serenader.

"Is young Thanet up there?" came the voice.