Why the deuce had he come to this one?
Why had he yielded so readily to the urgings of the professor of
mathematics?--himself urged in turn, perhaps, by a wife for whose little
affair one extra man at the opening of the fall season counted, and counted
hugely. Why must he now expose himself to the boundless aplomb and momentum
of this woman of forty-odd who was finding amusement in treating him as a
"college boy"? "Boy" indeed she had actually called him: well, perhaps his
present position made all this possible. He was not yet out in the world on
his own. In the background of "down state" was a father with a purse in his
pocket and a hand to open the purse. Though the purse was small and the
hand reluctant, he must partly depend on both for another year. If he were
only in business--if he were only a broker or even a salesman--he should
not find himself treated with such blunt informality and condescension as a
youth. If, within the University itself, he were but a real member of the
faculty, with an assured position and an assured salary, he should not have
to lie open to the unceremonious hectorings of the socially confident, the
"placed.
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