t accompaniments while they sang "The Minute Guns at Sea"; as
for Doctor and Mrs. Todd, another young man would soon be standing by
that same piano awakening their cherished memories.

It was in this other hypothetical young man that I found the
stumbling-block whenever my mind was settled to do the sensible thing.
The trouble was that I loved Gladys Todd. When I fixed my purpose to
march to the strife unhampered by any domestic ties, I felt that I was
making myself a martyr to duty. I began to compromise. In a few
years, when my feet were firmly set in the road and I had grown strong
enough to march with impedimenta, I should come back and claim Gladys
Todd, and my return would be a triumph like that of Boller of '89, only
in a degree far higher, for from her hands I should receive the
victor's garland.

I might have struggled on with such confused ideas as these had it not
been for the hypothetical other man. He haunted me. The hypothesis
became a fact. It found embodiment in Boller of '89. When after three
interminable days of self-denial I presented myself one evening at the
president's house, a look of annoyance with which Gladys greeted me
seemed connected in some way with the presence of Boller. In my state
of mind I should have suspected any octogenarian who smiled on Gladys
Todd as plotting against my happiness. That she was essential to my
happiness I realized as I watched her, in the shaded lamplight, her
face turned to him as she listened intently to an account of his recent
visit to Washington. They did not treat me as though I made a crowd.
That, at least, would have given me some importance. My role was a
younger brother's. Boller's greeting was kindly, but he made
unmistakable his superiority in years and wisdom as he lapsed into an
arm-chair and toyed with the broad black ribbon adorning his glasses,
while I was condemned to sit upright on a spindly chair. When he
addressed me it was to explain things of which he presumed that I was
ignorant, and he gave no heed to my vehement protests to the contrary.
When Gladys Todd addressed me it was to call attention to some
peculiarly interesting feature of Boller's discourse. They did not
drive me to despair, though I was sure this to be their aim. They
simply aroused my fighting blood. All other thoughts for the future
were forgotten, buried under the repeated vow that I would repay Gladys
Todd a thousand times for this momentary coldness and w