He'd put poison in my tea on half a chance."
Unhappily, the sharp cleft made in the board at the time of the election
survived and deepened. The trustees developed a way of dividing seven to
five on almost all of West's recommendations which was anything but
encouraging. An obstinate, but human, pride of opinion tended to keep
the two factions facing each other intact, and matters very tiny in
themselves served, as the weeks went by, to aggravate this feeling.
Once, at least, before Christmas, it required all of West's tact and
good-humor to restore the appearance of harmony to a meeting which was
fast growing excited.
But the young president would not allow himself to become discouraged.
He earnestly intended to show James E. Winter which of the two knew most
about running a modern institution of the higher learning. Only the
perfectest bloom of his ardor faded under the constant handling of rough
fingers. The interval separating Blaines College and the University of
Paris began to loom larger than it had seemed in the halcyon
summer-time, and the classic group of noble piles receded further and
further into the prophetic haze.
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