For a moment James saw himself in the role and coveted it. Jeff
read his thought, and his laughter brought his cousin back to
earth. He had the irritated sense of having been caught.

"It's not an occasion for talking nonsense," he said coldly.

Jeff sensed his disgrace in the stiff politeness of the professors
and in the embarrassed aloofness of his classmates. Some of the
men frankly gave him a wide berth as if he had been a moral
pervert.

His temperament was sensitive to slights and he fell into one of
his rare depressions. One afternoon he took the car for the city.
He wanted to get away from himself and from his environment.

A chill mist was in the air. Drawn by the bright lights, Jeff
entered a saloon and sat down in an alcove with his arms on the
table. Why did they hammer him so because he told the truth as he
saw it? Why must he toady to the ideas of Bland as everybody else
at the University seemed to do? He was not respectable enough for
them. That was the trouble. They were pushing him back into the
gutter whence he had emerged. Wild fragmentary thoughts chased
themselves across the record of his brain.

Almost before he knew it he had ordered and drunk a highball.
Immediately his horizon lightened. With the second glass his
depression vanished. He felt equal to anything.

It was past nine o'clock when he took the University car. As
chance had it Professor Perkins and he were the only passengers.