“Oh, I didn’t know,” she gasped.  “Excuse me.”

She moved away quickly, dropping her handbag and having to stoop for it.  Then she saw that she had left her gloves on the bench and she had to turn back for those.  At that moment Lena hastened to her.

“I’m so sorry,” she cried.  “I ought to have warned you about that old senior bench.”

Kate, disdaining a reply, strode on unheeding.  Her whole body was running fire, and she was furious with herself to think that she could suffer such an agony of embarrassment over a blunder which, after all, was trifling.  Struggling valiantly for self-command, she plunged toward another bench and dropped on it with the determination to look her world in the face and give it a fair chance to stare back.

Then she heard Lena give a throaty little squeak.

“Oh, my!” she said.

Something apparently was very wrong this time, and Kate was not to remain in ignorance of what it was.  The bench on which she was now sitting had its custodian in the person of a tall youth, who lifted his hat and smiled upon her with commingled amusement and commiseration.

“Pardon,” he said, “but—­”

Kate already was on her feet and the little gusts of laughter that came from the onlookers hit her like so many stones.

“Isn’t this seat for freshmen either?” she broke in, trying not to let her lips quiver and determined to show them all that she was, at any rate, no coward.

The student, still holding his hat, smiled languidly as he shook his head.

“I’m new, you see,” she urged, begging him with her smile to be on her side,—­“dreadfully new!  Must I wait three years before I sit here?”

“I’m afraid you’ll not want to do it even then,” he said pleasantly.  “You understand this bench—­the C bench we call it—­is for men; any man above a freshman.”

Kate gathered the hardihood to ask:—­

“But why is it for men, please?”

“I don’t know why.  We men took it, I suppose.”  He wasn’t inclined to apologize apparently; he seemed to think that if the men wanted it they had a right to it.

“This bench was given to the men, perhaps?” she persisted, not knowing how to move away.

“No,” admitted the young man; “I don’t believe it was.  It was presented to the University by a senior class.”

“A class of men?”

“Naturally not.  A graduating class is composed of men and women.  C bench,” he explained, “is the center of activities.  It’s where the drum is beaten to call a mass meeting, and the boys gather here when they’ve anything to talk over.  There’s no law against women sitting here, you know.  Only they never do.  It isn’t—­oh, I hardly know how to put it—­it isn’t just the thing—­”

“Can’t you break away, McCrea?” some one called.

The youth threw a withering glance in the direction of the speaker.

“I can conduct my own affairs,” he said coldly.