F I T ZG E R A L D
was hopeless to attempt any more inspired decoration than class banners and tiger pictures. There was a tap at the door. “Come in!” A slim face with gray eyes and a humorous smile appeared in the doorway. “Got a hammer?” “No—sorry. Maybe Mrs. Twelve, or whatever she goes by, has one.” The stranger advanced into the room. “You an inmate of this asylum?” Amory nodded. “Awful barn for the rent we pay.” Amory had to agree that it was. “I thought of the campus,” he said, “but they say there’s so few freshmen that they’re lost. Have to sit around and study for something to do.” The gray–eyed man decided to introduce himself. “My name’s Holiday.” “Blaine’s my name.” They shook hands with the fashionable low swoop. Amory grinned. “Where’d you prep?” “Andover—where did you?” “St. Regis’s.” “Oh, did you? I had a cousin there.” They discussed the cousin thoroughly, and then Holiday announced that he was to meet his brother for dinner at six. “Come along and have a bite with us.” “All right.” At the Kenilworth Amory met Burne Holiday—he of the gray eyes was Kerry—and during a limpid meal of thin soup and anaemic vegetables they stared at the other freshmen, who sat either in small groups looking very ill at ease, or in large groups seeming very much at home. 49