III.
Three weeks later, having requested and passed a special examination in trigonometry, Basil began to look around him gloomily to see if there was anything left in life. Not since his miserable first year at school had he passed through such a period of misery; only now did he begin for the first time to be aware of Yale. The quality of romantic speculation reawoke, and, listlessly at first, then with growing determination, he set about merging himself into this spirit which had fed his dreams so long.
“I want to be chairman of the News or the Record,” thought his old self one October morning, “and I want to get my letter in football, and I want to be in Skull and Bones.”
Whenever the vision of Minnie and Le Moyne on the train occurred to him, he repeated this phrase like an incanta
