When Tom reached the Whitman house on the day of the race, he found it full. He had seen Nancy only once since her illness; and as her room had then been filled with people, his call was not remarkable. He had not failed to notice, nevertheless, that the colour came into her face as he entered the room; and there had been other auspicious signs which had had an exciting effect upon his pulse. This call had been made only two days before the race, and it was then clear that Nancy could not go with him. A Philadelphia cousin had, however, announced her arrival a particular friend of hers being in the Woodbridge boat and would Tom mind taking her? Uncle Bob Whitman had wonderful seats, being an Overseer, but he wasn’t going to be able to use them, and of course Tom would be only too happy to take her.

Nancy, pale and lovely, was serving tea, but she found time to thank him again for his goodness about the Philadelphia cousin, and then she took him over to be presented. On the way across the room they passed Henry. Tom, who stared at him, missed the tell-tale blush on Nancy’s cheeks. Instead, he only saw Henry shift his eyes calmly from Nancy to him and bow coldly. Tom bowed as coldly in his turn, and then Nancy left him with the Philadelphia cousin.

Lily Griffin, the Philadelphia cousin, gazed at him steadily from under the floppy expanse of her black hat. She was sitting on a low cane covered bench before the fireplace, and her legs, which were encased in light grey silk stockings and which terminated in slippers of the same colour, her legs, let it be relentlessly repeated, were the most conspicuous things in the room. Over her shoulders were the thin strings of an undergarment that Tom thought was generally concealed. Still, one couldn’t be at all sure about such things from one day to the next.

“Would you mind taking my cigarette?” she asked, handing him the stub.

“So you know Platt Raeburn,” he began amiably when he had returned from his pretty task.

“Yes.”

“He’s an awfully nice boy. I know him quite well.” Platt was in the Star; and Lily, who knew a great deal about such things, immediately suspected that Tom was also. How else would a professor know a crew star “quite well”? Her interest in Tom rose. He had, as a matter of fact, attractive eyes; and that cerise-coloured knitted tie with a pearl stickpin might indicate much.

“Platt is a nice boy, isn’t he?” she continued with a shade more enthusiasm. “We went on the most wonderful party this Easter. He wasn’t in training then, you know, and I have never seen any one funnier than he was. We were at the Greysons’ in Ardmore, and Platt thought he was insulted by the butler when he took Platt’s cigarette off a table and threw it in the fire. It was burning the table, but old Platt didn’t know that, and he knocked the man down.”

“It must have been funny,” said Tom, who had heard the story before.

“Oh, it was a scream. I thought I’d die laughing. It was really awfully bad of him, though, don’t you think?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Tom boldly. “I don’t think it was so very bad. You’ve got to expect that sort of thing nowadays.”

“Mercy, I didn’t think you’d say that. Aren’t you a professor here, or something?”

“Yes, something.”

“Well, but I always thought ”

“What?” with a smile.

“Oh, nothing. Say, just between you and I, don’t you think this is rather slow?” and she gave him a look that showed he was making good.

The hospitality they were accepting was, of course, his own Nancy’s, and to be strictly honourable he should have defended everything, but with certain definite reservations in his mind he replied, “Deadly.”

“That dreadful old creature over there actually eyed me when I smoked that last cig.” The dreadful old creature was Mrs. Conover, who found it difficult to reconstruct herself to the present century. “I should think it would be awfully stupid living here. Now, isn’t it really?”

“No, it isn’t half bad.”

“Oh, I can see you’re a highbrow, like all the rest of them. Personally, I couldn’t stand it. I’m too independent, I guess. What a sweet dog.” Clarence was before her, arrayed in the Woodbridge colours. “I love dogs. I’ve the sweetest little Boston bull bitch at home. She won a silver flask for me last year.” She was examining Clarence with the eye of a practised dogwoman. “Do you know anything about Airedales?” Tom didn’t. “I suspect his tail is wrong,” she said. “Now run along, sweetie,” she called to Clarence; “momma can’t have a baby with wrong tail.” Clarence received this incredulously, but a complication was averted by the arrival of Nancy. “We were just criticizing your dog, my dear. Why don’t you have his tail fixed?”

“Why, what’s the matter with it?” asked Nancy. She hated the thought of anything having happened to Clarence.

“Why, it’s too long. You should have two inches at least cut off.” The picture of Clarence going around with his tail done up in a bandage was a delightful one, and Nancy laughed.

Lily appealed to Tom. “Isn’t she heartless?” But before Tom could answer the slightly embarrassing question, the cruel one announced that they had better be on their way, as the race started at five and it was then half-past four. So they hustled into the Whitman motor and drove to Center, where the new observation train was already filling.

The race with Hartley was always one of the great spring events, but the new observation train made it more of an event than ever. People gloated over it as though they had never seen a train before, much to the amusement of Lily, whose attendance at New London had been frequent. Many paused admiringly at the engine and, as they passed on up the line of a dozen cars, loudly proclaimed their admiration of the entire arrangement. “They are just like prairie schooners,” said one young man, to Lily’s huge delight, for she had never before seen so much provincialism all at once. The platform was thick with people rushing to find their cars at the last minute. All was hurry and excitement and colour and laughter. The orange of Woodbridge and the olive of Hartley were everywhere. Each person boldly displayed his colours, whether with flowers or feathers, and it was clear that earth had few greater pleasures than this. Then the engine tooted and rang its bell, and with a convulsive wrench they were off, amid the cheers of everyone.

Tom and his Lily were seated between the Hartley cheering section and the Woodbridge cheering section, in the very choice seats which Mr. Whitman naturally commanded and Tom, although he thought boat racing a much overrated sport and resented its being preferred to baseball, felt a distinct thrill as they passed out upon the river bank and up to the starting point. Only the cold unseasonable wind which swept down the course, riffling the water and chilling every one to the bone, marred the day.

They arrived at the starting point, and the occupants of the new cars wrapped what little they had around them. Quite obviously, the race could not be rowed until the wind died. There was nothing to do but just sit and wait.

The Hartley cheering section immediately climbed down upon the bank, with the exception of one young man who was left with his head lolling over the side of the car next to Tom. Friendly remonstrance had been futile. He had refused to move and had elected to slumber. “I think he’s sweet,” said Lily, gazing over at him. “Tell me, do you have much trouble getting liquor here?”

“No,” said Tom. Already the spell of the day was wearing off.

“I’ve learned, to my sorrow that you can’t be too careful. Such a time as I had last month! I went out to a luncheon party May Stephens you know her? Well, just before luncheon I was astonished to see cocktails appear. I didn’t think May had any stock, but there she was just the same, jiggling the shaker up and down. Well, at the first sip I thought something was funny, but there was nothing to do about it; and then May gave me a dividend, and although it nearly killed me, I managed to get it down, and then when we were all through she asked us how we liked it. Well, I told her I thought it was a little funny, and then she announced what I knew all along; that she had made it herself. ’I made it out of spirits of nitre,’ she said. ‘Did you boil off the ether?’ someone asked, and she said she hadn’t! Well, we hadn’t got hardly started at lunch when one of the girls passed right straight out and then we all began feeling trembly and queer, and then the next thing I knew I was at home in bed, and I wasn’t up and about for a week. Wasn’t that awful?”

Tom’s enthusiasm was ebbing fast. What a prodigious bore this race was going to be! The wind was blowing up his legs, and his light spring overcoat was far from ample. The seats were too close together and were of a granite hardness; but he and Lily were wedged into the back and could not escape without treading upon the toes of half of Woodbridge’s notables. So he sat still and tried to smile brightly at the conclusion of her story.

“Do you know?” Lily continued, “I think you have a lovely smile.”

“Goody,” replied Tom, and smiled again, this time rather archly.

Lily was examining him between half closed lids. “And I think you have nice eyes, too particularly the lashes. They are so long and silky.”

“Well, it’s a great secret, of course,” replied Tom, “and you mustn’t tell even your mother” Lily giggled “but I think you have the prettiest way with you I have ever seen.”

“Oh, dear me, you are funny. Now you must keep me warm.”

The car, it has been pointed out, was full of Woodbridge notables, and any warming of the young lady would not have been looked upon with favour. Nor would Tom have cared to warm her had they been quite alone at the North Pole. What an ordeal this was getting to be, and how lucky was Nancy, comfortably seated before the fire! How good would that particular fire be, and what a soft and fragrant place to ask a certain question! What a contrast Nancy made to this miserable girl beside him! Nancy at the time happened to be repairing certain ravages that the tea had made upon her nephew’s best blue suit, but the scheme of Tom’s thoughts was not spoiled.

“Bad man, you’re not showing me any kind of a time.”

Tom was exasperated. A group in front of them had built a fire. “How would you like to go down there?” he asked. “Can you climb down over the side here?”

“’Course I can.”

Tom climbed over the railing, dropped to the ground, and, turning his ankle, cried “Ouch!” loudly enough to waken the young Hartley man whose head was lolling over the adjacent railing. The youth looked up and beheld the lovely Lily poised, apparently preparing to fly into his arms. He reared himself up. “Come, lovely girl,” he cried, “I love you.” And then as she swooped by, he made a grab at her and tore her dress.

“You bad boy,” she cried, with little discretion, “you tore my dress.”

“You bad boy,” repeated the young Hartley man, “yuhtoradress, yuhtoradress.”

Tom had managed to hurry her away, although his ankle hurt him considerably, but not until all the notables had seen the performance. What a mortifying affair. No doubt many supposed that he was the one who had torn the dress.

Fortunately, Lily met a friend at the fire, and Tom was free for the time being. Would the wind never die down? The flag on the coach’s launch was not quite so active. There was a rumour that they would start at six-thirty. Only half an hour more. Well, he could stand that. Lily seemed to be having a time with her new young man, and he limped over to a neighbouring fire where there were fewer Lilies and more heat. There he met a classmate of whom he was particularly fond; and before he knew it the starter’s launch had put out into the river, and the parties around the fires were scampering back aboard the train. With considerable difficulty he followed Lily up over the side, for his foot was now swollen and painful. Finally, however, they were seated again, buoyed up with the thought of the race’s being at last under way when the starter’s boat retired from the scene, and word arrived that the race would not be rowed until seven.

Tom could not cover his disappointment.

“I don’t think you are very polite!” said Lily.

“Sorry,” replied Tom, his ankle throbbing.

“In fact I think you’re horrid.”

“Good!” said Tom. Lily looked her rage and half turned her back on him. Well, that was something to be thankful for, at any rate.

They sat there in ever-increasing gloom. Some of the Lilies gamboled back to shiver over the fires, but even they were beginning to droop. Tom’s Lily would have joined them her new friend was not a wet smack but Tom, with his throbbing ankle, did not offer to go, and she was too proud to suggest it. So they sat and waited.

The race was eventually rowed. At the starter’s gun the train gave another convulsive jerk, which sent Tom’s injured foot flying against the side of the car, and the crowd fanned into life its jaded enthusiasm. Out in the gathering dusk the two crews inched their way along. It was not quite clear which was which, the blades both showing black, and though Lily was certain she had located Platt and cheered lustily for his boat, subsequent evidence indicated that he was in the other. The two cheering sections woke to frenzy, and the notables’ car was swept with confusion. Lily was beside herself and kept jumping to her feet with an appealing cry of “Oh Platt!” Tom looked over at the Hartley car at one point and saw that his friend had apparently had fresh access to his source of refreshment, for he was now blissfully asleep, cheek on the railing.

At the two-mile stake with a final mile to go the boats were even, but both sides were jubilant, for from each section it clearly showed that the home crew was ahead. Then the train shot behind a heavily timbered point, and when the view of the river was again free, the Woodbridge shell was half a length behind and obviously beaten. A pang of disappointment shot through Tom. Oh, well, it was a fitting climax to the day. There they were, slipping back and back. They were splashing badly, and one of the Woodbridge men was obviously not pulling his weight. Then the Hartley boat flashed over the finish amid the tooting of countless automobiles along the banks, a winner by a length and a quarter.

The Hartley people had given way to a transport of joy, while their coxswain crawled along his shell throwing water over the chests and faces of his men. The two boats floated idly about, their crews bowed forward, gasping in agony for strength. To the men in the Hartley boat came the faint sound of their grateful supporters. They had won and what was an enlarged heart or, possibly, a damaged kidney, to such glory? The half hysterical screams of their Lilies were sweet compensation. As for the Woodbridge crew, well, they would have to swallow their dose as best they could and wait for next year.

The young Hartley man next to Tom woke up. “’S the race over?” he asked.

“Yes, it’s over,” shouted Tom, for no one else heard him.

“Thank God,” he shouted hoarsely, and went back to sleep a sentiment which cheered Tom so much that Lily, on the homeward trip, decided he wasn’t quite such a dumb-bunny, after all.