At first Betty seemed scarcely to see Goodhue. She held out her hand to George.
"That was splendid. Don't forget that you're going to make me congratulate you this way next fall after the big games."
"I'll do my best. I want you to," George said.
Again he responded to the frank warmth of her fingers that seemed unconsciously endeavouring to make more pliable the hard surface of his mind.
"The strength of a lion," Bailly was saying, "united to the cruel cunning of the serpent. Heaven be praised you didn't seek the higher education at Yale or Harvard."
Betty called a belated greeting to Goodhue.
"Hello, Dicky! Wasn't it a real run? I feel something of a sponsor. I told him before college opened he would be a great player."
Goodhue's surprise was momentarily apparent.
"It was rather nice to see those big fellows dumped," he said.
"Aren't you coming out to dinner soon? I'll promise Green you won't break training."
The warm, slender fingers were no longer at George's mind. He felt abruptly repulsed. He wanted only to get away. Her eyes caught his, and she smiled.
"And bring Mr. Morton. I'm convinced he'll never come unless somebody takes him by the hand."
George glanced at her hand. He had a whimsical impulse to reach out for it, to close his eyes, to be led.
Heavy feet hurried behind the little group. A voice filled with rancour and disgust cried out:
"You standing here without blankets just to enjoy the autumn breezes? You ought to have better sense, Mr. Bailly."
"That's different," the trainer admitted, gallantly. "You can't expect a woman to have much sense. Get to the showers now, and on the run."
"I didn't know you were a friend of Betty Alston's," Goodhue said.
George didn't answer. Goodhue didn't say anything else.
Often after those long, pounding afternoons George returned to his room, wondering dully, as he had done last summer, why the deuce he did it. Sylvia's picture stared the same answer, and he would turn with a sigh to one of the novels Bailly loaned him regularly. Bailly was of great value there, too, for he chose the books carefully, and George was commencing to learn that as a man reads so is he very likely to think. Whenever he spoke now he was careful to modulate his voice, to choose his words, never to be heard without a reason.