weeds. The gaunt man regarded him quietly; then said:
"David, you have come far." He raised the hoe and pointed to the sky.
"And I suppose they have heard of it off there--in Mars and Saturn."
He turned to the ground, to an army of ants working on a pyramid of
sand. "And down there--I suppose they have heard of it." David
Malcolm looked about him. The world seemed waste as far as his mind
could carry. The Professor saw the disappointment clouding his face,
for he stepped closer to him and, laying a hand upon his shoulders,
said: "Remember, David, sealed orders."

CHAPTER XI

In those last days at college, when in moments of contemplation I
sketched with free imagination a long and unbroken career of success,
whether I would or not, Gladys Todd was always gliding into my dreams.
She had been too long a central figure in them for me to evict her
easily. I knew that I had best begin my march unhampered by
impedimenta of any kind, but I found it no easy task to get myself into
light marching order. While I had never made a serious proposal for
her hand, I had in sentimental moments said things which implied that
at the proper time I should offer myself formally. That the offer
would bring her prompt acquiescence I never for a moment doubted. But
more embarrassing was the attitude of Doctor and Mrs. Todd. They
treated me as though I were a member of the family. Mrs. Todd's eyes
always beamed with a peculiarly motherly light when they rested on me,
and now I recalled with something akin to terror an evening when Gladys
at the piano was accompanying me as I sang "The Minute Guns at Sea."
Her mother entered the parlor. It did her good, she said, to see us,
for it brought back the dear days when she and Doctor Todd had sung as
we were singing at that very same piano. Doctor Todd never expressed
his thoughts with quite such frankness, but now I could remember many
times when he had treated me with fatherly consideration. To end
abruptly such a friendship seemed not alone a gross abandonment of
Gladys Todd, but of Doctor Todd and Mrs. Todd. The sensible thing to
do was clear to me in my saner moments. During the few days that
remained to me at college I should continue the friendship, but it
would be friendship and nothing more. Then I would go away, politely,
as hundreds of other young men before me had left Harlansburg, with a
formal parting handshake to hundreds of other young women who had
played sof