“Got you sir.  Come on, fellows.  Look out, you freshmen.”  With a yell and a dive the oarsmen went through the doors.

Deacon followed at a more leisurely gait with that faint gleam of amusement in his eyes which was so characteristic.  His first impulse was not to go, but upon second thought he decided that he would.  Jane Bostwick was stopping at the Groton.  Her father was a successful promoter and very close to Cephas Doane, Sr., whose bank stood back of most of his operations.  Deacon had known her rather well in the days when her father was not a successful promoter.  In fact, the two had been neighbours as boy and girl, had played together in front of a row of prim brick houses.  He had not seen her in recent years until the previous afternoon, when as he was walking along the country road, she had pulled up in her roadster.

“Don’t pretend you don’t remember me, Jim Deacon,” she had laughed as the boy had stared at the stunning young woman.

Jim remembered her, all right.  They talked as though so many significant years had not elapsed.  She was greatly interested, exceedingly gracious.

“Do you know,” she said, “it never occurred to me that Deacon, the Baliol rowing man, was none other than Jim Deacon.  Silly of me, wasn’t it?  But then I didn’t even know you were in Baliol.  I’m perfectly crazy about the crew, you know.  And Mother, I think, is a worse fan than I am.  You know Junior Doane, of course.”

“Oh, yes—­that is, I—­why, yes, I know him.”

“Yes.”  She smiled down upon him.  “If you’re ever down to the Groton, do drop in.  Mother would love to see you.  She often speaks of your mother.”  With a wave of her hand she had sped on her way.

Curiously, that evening he had heard Doane talking to her over the telephone, and there was a great deal in his manner of speaking that indicated something more than mere acquaintance.

But Deacon did not see Jane Bostwick at the hotel—­not to speak to, at least.  He was not a good dancer and held aloof when those of his fellows who were not acquainted with guests were introduced around.  Finding a wicker settee among some palms at one side of the orchestra, Deacon sat drinking in the scene.

It was not until the hour set for the return had almost arrived that Deacon saw Jane Bostwick, and then his attention was directed to her by her appearance with Junior Doane in one of the open French windows at his right.  Evidently the two had spent the evening in the sequestered darkness of the veranda.  No pair in the room filled the eye so gratefully; the girl, tall, blonde, striking in a pale blue evening gown; the man, broad-shouldered, trim-waisted, with the handsome high-held head of a patrician.

A wave of something akin to bitterness passed over Deacon—­bitterness having nothing to do with self.  For the boy was ruggedly independent.  He believed in himself; knew what he was going to do in the world.  He was thinking of his father, and of the fathers of that young man and girl before him.  His father was painstaking, honourable, considerate—­a nobleman every inch of him; a man who deserved everything that the world had to give, a man who had everything save the quality of acquisition.  And Doane’s father?  And Jane Bostwick’s father?