Page:The Blind Bow-Boy (IA blindbowboy00vanv).pdf/89

 four in the back of the car were conversing in an animated manner about matters with which he had no concern. There was, however, he perceived, no rudeness in connection with this exclusion. He did not have the feeling, which had come to him so many times at college, that he was being ignored. It was rather as though these people considered him already enough of a friend so that they might talk freely in his presence without making any mechanical attempt to draw him in. Presently, he discovered that the motor of a Rolls-Royce heats the feet mercilessly. He spoke of this to the chauffeur, who opened an aperture near Harold's ankles, permitting a draught to blow across them.

There is something pathetic about the young, the suffering of a young man trying to adjust himself to circumstances which he does not understand. Harold presently began to miss the compassion assuredly due him, and his mood shifted. In spite of the friendly attitude of his companions, he began to pity himself, as he sat silent and alone on the little seat beside the driver of the Rolls-Royce, which was breaking all the speed laws, as it burst forward down the Long Island turnpike. Houses, farms, trees, Socony signs: a monotonous prospect. Harold, saddened a little, it is presumable, by Bacardi rum, thought of himself as helplessly immeshed in a kind of life which he certainly did not understand and which he felt sure he never could like. Helpless! From his earliest childhood he