Page:Stanwood Pier--The ancient grudge.djvu/41

30 Floyd looked at him blankly. "What! You mean—I'm—I'm elected?"

"Of course, that's just what I mean, you old fool!" cried Stewart, laughing and giving Floyd a good-natured slap on the back. "I've got to run; I have a date, and I'm late as usual. But I 'm awfully glad you're elected, Floyd."

And then, before he ran away, he gave his room-mate not a good-natured thump, but a gentle, affectionate little tap.

It was a raw, cloudy afternoon, the moisture in the air clung like a net to one's face, and the streets along which Floyd took his unheeding way were bare and dreary; but he would not have been happier if it had been an afternoon in spring, with the birds calling from trees and hedges. He was indifferent to social honors, but this election revived his hope of coming again into close relations with Stewart; more than that, it pleased him as a sign that Stewart cared for him. He laughed to himself now at the way in which the boy had notified him of the event; it seemed to him the most genial, merry, affectionate way. When at last from a hilltop he turned his face homeward, a few scattered lights of Cambridge were appearing in the dusk; he watched for new flashes, the thickening glow on the bosom of the town. "That's the way it happens," he murmured to himself. "First one little light inside you, and then another, and then you warm up all of a sudden."

He learned afterwards that Stewart had made a personal issue of his election, battering down the opposition of members who did not know him or thought he would not be quite "genial;" Stewart had gone about, cajoling, demanding, proclaiming, "He's my room-mate, he's the best fellow that ever lived, he's a hero too, and saved my life and almost lost his own." And nobody had thought it worth while to oppose such a headstrong, determined canvass.

Stewart did his best to make Floyd at home in the club;