THE MAN INZA MET.
Starbright was moody. Nothing seemed to arouse him from the dispirited,
downcast state into which he had fallen. Being a big, strong fellow, in
robust health, such an atmosphere was strange to him. Frank could not
remember having seen the fellow just like that but once before, and that
was when he was recovering from the spell of dissipation into which he
had been thrown by the drug given him by his enemies.
Diamond had never seen Dick in a gloomy mood, and he was surprised by
it. He tried to rally the freshman, saying he must be in love; but
Starbright simply frowned and shook his head.
Dick was thinking of Inza as she had appeared to him once, and as she
appeared to him now.
“They’re all alike!” he thought bitterly. “Rosalind was like Inza in
many ways, and she threw me over for Dade Morgan. When she found out
what a scoundrel Morgan was she tried to make up with me, but I was not
quite so big a chump as she imagined. I think Inza is even worse than
Rose, for she has deceived Frank right along. He is so honest and square
himself that he never suspects others of deception. It’s useless to try
to convince him, for he believes in that girl implicitly.
“I’m sorry for him, but it’s plain he is desperately in love with her,
even though he may not really know it. Why, I fancy he’d marry her
to-morrow if she’d have him! That being the case, he is in danger, for
she is liable to decide at any minute that she’ll have him. If she
should, she’d find a way to let him know it and to lead him into a
proposal. How is that to be prevented? The only way is to convince him
beyond the shadow of a doubt that she is a treacherous, heartless flirt.
But how can I convince him? I must find a way. I will.”
Starbright still seemed to feel that he had done Merriwell a wrong, and
this added to his sense of duty toward the youth who had befriended him
when he first came to college. Having become convinced that Merry would
be led into a snare in case he ever married Inza, Dick determined to
find a way to prove to Frank that the dark-eyed, haughty girl was
unworthy of him.
“I must do it, even though it makes him despise me,” mentally decided
the big Andover man. “It will be nothing more than an act of pure
friendship.”
Jack Diamond’s story of his mistake had made not the slightest
impression upon Starbright. Frank had hoped it would open the youth’s
eyes to the folly of jumping at conclusions, but it had not, for Dick,
like old Captain Starbright, his father, was hard-headed and set, once
having formed an opinion.
A man of this character is almost always successful in life if he gets
started on the right track, for he will stick and hang like a bulldog
until he wins; but give him a wrong start, let him bend his energies in
the wrong direction, and he will persist in a bull-headed way in
carrying out plans that any one and every one else can see are certain
to bring disaster upon him.
The bulldog determination and stick-to-it-iveness is all right if it is
properly combined with reasoning ability. But the person who says he is
right because he thinks so, and refuses to listen to reason or argument,
is certain sooner or later to butt his head against a stone and knock
out what few obstinate brains he possesses. There are men so constituted
that they persist in declaring they are right, in the face of positive
evidence to the contrary. Sometimes they shut their eyes so they may not
see the evidence. This sort of bulldog persistency is simply
“foolishness.”
Frank knew Dick was brooding over the affair, and he thought a walk in
the open air might do the big freshman good. Thus, after they had eaten,
during which Jack and Merry seemed in a very agreeable mood, not a
little to Dick’s wonderment, Merriwell proposed a walk.
Diamond, however, stated that he had many letters to write and thought
he had better be about them at once.
“I’ll have to run down home for a day or two before going across,” he
said. “I shall leave you to-morrow, Merriwell. To-night I shall spend in
getting things straightened out here.”
So Frank and Dick left the hotel together. They made a handsome “pair”
as they strolled along the street—shoulder to shoulder. Starbright was
larger, but he was not a whit more finely developed, and there was a
certain air of confidence and assurance about Merriwell that was not
possessed by the big fellow. At a glance a discerning person could see
that Frank was the natural leader and a born commander of men.
They walked up Broadway, attracting considerable attention and causing
more than one head to be turned that the owner might follow them with
his or her eyes.
“Things have conspired to hold me here in New York long after I had
thought of returning to college,” said Merry; “but I’m going back with
you to-morrow, Starbright.”
“I’m glad of that,” said Dick listlessly.
“Your voice did not sound as if you were very glad.”
“Nevertheless, I am, Frank. All the fellows will be delighted. Why,
things are at loose ends there. Everybody is wondering what keeps you
away.”
“Are they?”
“Yes. The baseball men are worried to death, and there is a general air
of suspense and dread over the place.”
Frank laughed. “I fear you are making it too strong, Starbright. Yale
got along all right before I came, and I am sure she will continue to do
so when I’m gone.”
“But you know what happened when you were away—you know how she slumped
the year you were out of college.”
“The same thing might have happened had I been there.”
“Nobody believes it. All point to the fact that you straightened things
out in a hurry when you came back.”
“That is giving me too much credit.”
“Nobody thinks so. Yale never in her history had such a football-team as
she did last season. Not once was she defeated. Harvard had the best
team she ever put onto the field, yet Yale beat her. I say Yale, but I
mean Merriwell, for it is certain Harvard would have won that game had
you not risen from a sickbed and appeared on the field at the critical
moment in the last half. You won the game for us, Merriwell, by the most
remarkable play ever seen on a football-field, jumping clean over the
head of a tackler. What other man could have done that?”
Starbright was beginning to forget Inza, and life and animation were
coming back to him.
“It was a very lucky trick,” said Merry, with no show of false modesty.
“Lucky! It was astounding, and the strange thing is that not a single
newspaper report described it. All reports say you dodged Fulton, the
Harvard tackler, when in truth you dodged him by jumping over him as he
flung himself forward to grasp you about the body. I think that was a
clean case of robbing you of the credit that was your due.”
Again Frank laughed.
“Who cares as long as Yale won!” he cried.
“Everybody cares at Yale. I tell you, Merriwell, you’ll find you are the
thing when you get back there! You had enemies once, but they’re all in
the soup now. Not even the Chickering set dares breathe a word against
you in public, for they know it would mean tar and feathers. You’ll find
the professors ready to take off their hats to you. And everybody is
kicking because this is your last term at the old college.”
“My boy, you make me afraid to go back there; but I hope it is not as
bad as you say, for I couldn’t stand it. I don’t want anybody bowing
down to me. I’m just plain Frank Merriwell, and nothing more.”
“Which means that to-day you are the greatest and best-known young man
in this country. Oh, I’m not putting it on too thick! Can you wonder
that Yale dreads to lose you? Can you wonder that your absence has
produced no end of worry?”
Frank knew Starbright was sincere. He had entertained a feeling of
resentment toward the freshman because of his suspicions concerning
Inza; but now Merry realized once more that Dick was scarcely anything
but a big, impressionable boy, and must be regarded as such.
“I shall be sorry to leave without seeing Inza or hearing anything about
her,” admitted Frank.
Instantly the cloud returned to Starbright’s face.
“Inza!” he muttered bitterly.
They had reached Thirty-third Street.
“Let’s walk down Sixth Avenue,” said Merry, and they turned that way,
leaving Broadway, glowing with thousands of electric lights, behind.
Over their heads rumbled the elevated trains, beneath the trestles of
which ran the surface trolleys. The avenue looked dark and dingy in
comparison with “Beautiful Broadway,” for at night the portion of
Broadway between Twenty-third and Forty-second Streets is really
fascinating and attractive.
On Broadway the greater part of the pedestrians had been well dressed
and fashionable in appearance. Barely had they turned into Sixth Avenue
when the general appearance of the people changed.
Dick suddenly clutched Frank’s arm with a crushing grip.
“Look!” he excitedly breathed, seeming to quiver from head to feet.
“There he is!”
He pointed to a bearded man who had paused to look at the chronometer in
the window of a jeweler’s small shop, having in hand his own watch,
which he was setting to correspond with the correct time.
“Who is it?” asked Frank quietly.
“The man Inza met at the Grand Central!” hissed Starbright. “The one she
called Walter! That is the man!”
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