Page:Glitter (1926).pdf/143

TO THE last day Jock lived he would remember that scene, even in its minutest, most trifling details. The Zeta Kappa dining room, oak paneled. Long tables gowned in white, covered with plates and silverware and bowls of shredded wheat, pitchers of milk and platters of eggs on toast. Above the tables, rectangular lines of sober faces, looking . . . looking at him . . . lifting to look at him, turning to look at him, as though they had never seen him before. Bill Olmstead with a spoonful of cereal arrested half way to his mouth. Ken Kennedy's eyes, hotly intent above the rim of his coffee cup. A panting hush over everything. . . .

"What the hell?" Jock said. And the question seemed to fall hollowly, shockingly, like a shriek in a church.

Then they told him. Carey Brown told him, dabbing at his lips nervously with a napkin. "Brad Hathaway's dead, Jock. He committed suicide at five o'clock this morning."

At first, it wasn't true. He wasn't hearing right. It was a ghastly delusion, a throwback to his terror of the night before. That terror returned now, and he became momentarily a little insane. All the intervening happenings slipped away into a mist, and he fancied