year, old man."

"Perhaps we can promise you one for next fall, Hippy," said Anne, with a
sudden temerity which surprised her as well as the others.

"Anne!" David's voice vibrated with newborn hope. For the instant he
forgot everything except the fact that Anne had at last approached some
degree of definiteness regarding their future.

"I said 'perhaps,'" laughed Anne, but behind her laughter David read the
blessed truth that in Anne's secret heart there was no "perhaps," and
the little hand which lay so contentedly in his, as they strolled up the
walk to the house, made the assurance of his new joy doubly sure.

"Why can't you make me happy too, Grace?" asked Tom in a low,
reproachful tone. They had dropped a little to the rear of the others.

"I'm sorry, Tom," faltered Grace, "but I can't. I am fonder of you than
any other man I know, but it is the fondness of long friendship. I'm not
looking forward to marriage. It is my work that interests me most. I
don't love you as Anne loves David, and Jessica and Nora love Reddy and
Hippy. I don't believe I know what love means. I don't wish to hurt you,
but I must be perfectly honest with myself and with you. I can only say
that I care for no one else, and that perhaps someday I may care as much
as you."

Grace gazed sorrowfully at Tom as she ended. She knew by the tightening
of his lips and the nervous squaring of his broad shoulders that she had
hurt him sorely.

"All right, Grace," he said with brave finality. "I'll try to be content
with your friendship and live in the hope of that 'someday.' I'm going
to be selfish enough to dream that there will come a time when even your
work won't be able to crowd out love."

Grace made no reply. She felt that there was nothing to be said. The
bare idea that there might come a time when her beloved work would fail
to fill her life was not to be considered, even for a moment. Love was a
vague, far-distant possibility. It might come to her, and again it might
not. But her work--that lay directly before her. The glory of life was
not love, but achievement. Her eyes grew rapt with purpose, and, as Tom
wistfully scanned her changeful face, it fell upon him with a sudden
sinking of the heart that for him the longed-for "someday" might never
come.

CHAPTER VII

THE RETURN OF EMMA DEAN

"'A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse!'" chanted a voice in Grace
Harlowe's ear.

Grace whirled about, almost dropping the suit ca