and--mean, which is worse. But, damn it, Scarborough, I HATE
being beaten. And it doesn't make defeat any the easier because
YOU did it."

He paused; but Scarborough did not speak.

"I'm going to be frank," Pierson went on with an effort. "I
know you had a perfect right to do as you pleased, but--hang it
all, old man--you might have warned me."

"But I didn't do as I pleased," said Scarborough. "And as for
telling you--" He paused before he interrupted himself with:
"But first I want to say that I don't like to give an account of
myself to my friends. What does friendship mean if it forbids
freedom? I didn't approve or condemn you because you belonged to
a fraternity, and because you headed a clique that was destroying
the Literary Society by making it a place for petty fraternity
politics instead of a place to develop speakers, writers and
debaters. Yet now you're bringing me to account because I didn't
slavishly accept your ideas as my own. Do you think that's a
sound basis for a friendship, Pierson?"

When Scarborough began Pierson was full of a grievance which he
thought real and deep. He was proposing to forgive Scarborough,
forgive him generously, but not without making him realize that
it was an act of generosity. As Scarborough talked he was first
irritated, then, and suddenly, convinced that he was himself in
the wrong--in the wrong throughout.

"Don't say another word, Scarborough," he replied, impulsively