her hard to attain
to perfection before one is twenty-one. I shall have nothing to strive
for. Don't you know the artist who did kill himself, or wanted to,
because he had done his best?"

"You are perfect as a boy--I mean, there is all manhood left to you," she
answered very gravely.

He colored again and his blue eyes grew as cold as steel. Had he come to
her to-night in the storm to have his youth thrown up at him?

"Marjorie, if that is all you have to say to me, I think I might better
go."

"O, Morris, don't be angry, don't be angry!" she pleaded. "How can I look
up to somebody who was born on my birthday," she added merrily.

"I don't want you to look up to me; but that is different from looking
down. You want me to tarry at Jericho, I suppose," he said, rubbing his
smooth chin.

"I want you not to be nonsensical," she replied energetically.

How that tiny box burned in his pocket! Should he toss it away, that
circlet of gold with _Semper fidelis_ engraved within it? How he used to
write on his slate: "Morris Kemlo, _Semper fidelis_" and she had never
once scorned it, but had written her own name with the same motto beneath
it. But she had given it a higher significance than he had given it; she
had never once thought of it in connection with any human love.

"How often do you write to Hollis?" he inquired at last.

"I do not write to him at all," she answered.

"Why not? Has something happened?" he said, eagerly.

"I suppose so."

"Don't you want to tell me? Does it trouble you?"

"Yes, I want to tell you, I do not think that it troubles me now. He has
never--answered my last letter."

"Did you quarrel with him?"

"Oh, no. I may have displeased him, but I have no idea how I did it."

She spoke very easily, not flushing at all, meeting his eyes frankly; she
was concealing nothing, there was nothing to be concealed. Marjorie was
a little girl still. Was he glad or sorry? Would he find her grown up
when he came back next time?

"Do you like school as well as you thought you would?" he asked, with a
change of tone.

He would not be "nonsensical" any longer.

"Better! A great deal better," she said, enthusiastically.

"What are you getting ready for?"

"_Semper fiddelis_. Don't you remember our motto? I am getting ready to
be always faithful. There's so much to be faithful in, Morris. I am
learning new things every day."

He had no reply at hand. How that innocent ring burned in his pocket!