There was silence in the room. Jack stood by the chimney-piece, his hands
upraised to rest upon its lofty shelf, his head dropped forward, and his
eyes fixed on the empty blackness below.

"I wonder," he said at last, "I wonder what will become of me if--if--"

He stopped.

Burnett didn't speak.

"I wonder if she thinks of me as a boy," the young man continued. "I
wonder if she's so good to me because I'm her youngest brother's friend."

Burnett did not comment on this speech.

"I don't know what to do," the other said. "When I first met her I wanted
to cut college and get out in the world and go to work like a man. I told
her so. But she wanted me to stay in college, and as it was the first
thing she'd ever wanted of me, I did it. I'd do anything she asked me.
I've quit drinking. I'm going at everything as hard as it's in me to go;
but--I don't know--I feel--I feel as if it isn't me--it's just because she
wants me to, and, do you know, old man, it frightens me to think how--if
she--if she went out of my--my life--"

He stopped and his broken phrases were not continued to any ending.

Another long silence ensued.

It was finally terminated by the brother's saying:

"You must confess, old man, that you aren't fixed so as to be able to say
one really serious word to any woman--unless it is, 'Wait.'"

"I know that," Jack answered; "but I suppose--"

"She'd be taking so many chances," the friend interrupted. "A man in
college is never the real thing. You'd better give it up."

Then the other whirled about and faced him.

"Give it up, did you say?" he asked almost angrily.

"Yes, that's what."

For a minute they looked at one another. Then:

"I shall never give it up," the lover said very slowly and
steadily--"never, until she gives me up."

Burnett sucked in his breath with a sudden compression of his lips.

"All right," he said, not unkindly; "but I don't believe you'll ever get
her, and that's flat. There are too many being entered for that race, and
long before you and I get out of here she'll be Mrs. Somebody Else."

Jack stared at him as if he hardly heard, and then suddenly he stepped
nearer and spoke.

"Did she ask you to have this talk with me?"

"No," said the brother in surprise, "she never says anything about you to
me."

A look of relief fled across his friend's face, and then a look of
resolution succeeded it.

"I'm not going to be discouraged," he said; "not for a while, at any