All tragedy has that strain of the grotesque and squalid--so useless, futile...

the way animals die....

Amory was reminded of a cat that had lain horribly mangled in some alley of his childhood.
"Some one go to Princeton with Ferrenby." Amory stepped outside the door and shivered slightly at the late night wind--a wind that stirred a broken fender on the mass of bent metal to a plaintive, tinny sound.
***** CRESCENDO! Next day, by a merciful chance, passed in a whirl.

When Amory was by himself his thoughts zigzagged inevitably to the picture of that red mouth yawning incongruously in the white face, but with a determined effort he piled present excitement upon the memory of it and shut it coldly away from his mind.
Isabelle and her mother drove into town at four, and they rode up smiling Prospect Avenue, through the gay crowd, to have tea at Cottage.
The clubs had their annual dinners that night, so at seven he loaned her to a freshman and arranged to meet her in the gymnasium at eleven, when the upper classmen were admitted to the freshman dance.

She was all he had expected, and he was happy and eager to make that night the centre of every dream.