Marjorie paled and Gray got a look from her that he had never had before.

“Did I hear you say ’can’t’?” she asked coldly.  “Well, I’m not going with him—­he won’t let me.  He’s going alone.  I’ll meet him there.”

Gray made a helpless gesture.

“Well, I’ll try to get the fellows to let him alone—­on your account.”

“Don’t bother—­he can take care of himself.”

“Why, Marjorie!”

The girl’s coldness was turning to fire.

“Why don’t you take Mavis?”

Gray started an impatient refusal, and stopped—­Mavis was passing in the grass on the other side of the road, and her face was flaming violently.

“She heard you,” said Gray in a low voice.

The heel of one of Marjorie’s little boots came sharply down on the gravelled road.

“Yes, and I hope she heard you—­and don’t you ever—­ever—­ever say can’t to me again.”  And she flashed away.

The news went rapidly through the college and, as Gray predicted, became the talk of the young people of the town, Marjorie’s mother did object violently, but Marjorie remained firm—­what harm was there in dancing with Jason Hawn, even if he was a poor mountaineer and a freshman?  She was not a snob, even if Gray was.  Jason himself was quiet, non-communicative, dignified.  He refused to discuss the matter with anybody, ignored comment and curiosity, and his very silence sent a wave of uneasiness through some of the sophomores and puzzled them all.  Even John Burnham, who had severely reprimanded and shamed Jason for the flag incident, gravely advised the boy not to go, but even to him Jason was respectfully non-committal, for this was a matter that, as the boy saw it, involved his rights, and the excitement grew quite feverish when one bit of news leaked out.  At the beginning of the session the old president, perhaps in view of the political turmoil imminent, had made a request that one would hardly hear in the chapel of any other hall of learning in the broad United States.

“If any student had brought with him to college any weapon or fire-arm, he would please deliver it to the commandant, who would return it to him at the end of the session, or whenever he should leave college.”

Now Jason had deliberated deeply on that request; on the point of personal privilege involved he differed with the president, and a few days before the dance one of his room-mates found not only a knife, but a huge pistol—­relics of Jason’s feudal days—­ protruding from the top bed.  This was the bit of news that leaked, and Marjorie paled when she heard it, but her word was given, and she would keep it.  There was no sneaking on Jason’s part that night, and when a crowd of sophomores gathered at the entrance of his dormitory they found a night-hawk that Jason had hired, waiting at the door, and patiently they waited for Jason.