During the winter that followed, Houston's constant attention to Florence was generally accepted at its face-value. That they were engaged few of their intimates doubted; and among the faculty members of their acquaintance there were many smiles and sidewise glances.

At a Forty Club dance one night Mrs. Longpré, a chaperon, said to Mrs. Clifford, another, lowering her lorgnette through which, for some moments she had stared, rather impertinently, as was her custom, at Jack and Florence, "I find that couple quite interesting."

"Why, pray?" Mrs. Clifford asked, roused suddenly from the doze into which she had lapsed, due to ennui that she made no effort to conceal.

"That Mr. Houston seems a very nice young man," observed the worthy dame, patronizingly, and as though speaking to herself, "but what he can see in that girl is beyond me."

Mrs. Clifford squinted. She refused to add to her generally aged and wrinkled appearance by wearing spectacles.

"Isn't she a proper person?" she asked.

Mrs. Clifford had a proper daughter-a very proper daughter-who at that precise moment was sitting prim and solitary on the lowest step of the gallery stairs.

"Well," Mrs. Longpré observed, significantly, "there have been stories. Of course one is quite prepared to hear stories and whether they are true or not one never knows," she added, defensively. "But the girl's mother allows her to have her own way more than I should, if she were my daughter. She is old enough to be his aunt, besides, and always has half-a-dozen young men dancing attendance upon her."

"I suppose it's just another college engagement that will end when he graduates," Mrs. Clifford ventured. "Is the girl in college at all?" she inquired with a smothered yawn.

Mrs. Longpré smiled. "Hardly," she replied, drily. "If she had continued-for she started I am told-she would have graduated quite seven years ago." There was a tart venom in the last speech.

"You don't say," mused Mrs. Clifford who was new to Ann Arbor, her husband, the professor, having been called from a little Ohio college to fill the chair of Norwegian Literature. And she immediately lapsed into another doze from which she did not emerge-being quite stout, and pleasantly stupid-until the orchestra overhead began the last dance-"Home, Sweet Home."

Mrs. Longpré's point-of-view as regarded Jack and Florence was that of nearly all the faculty women who knew them. Indeed, there was but one among them, the jolly little wife of the assistant professor of physics-who did not know much and did not feign more-who championed them. And her support was little more than a mere exclamation at the girl's beauty, now and then at a "reception," or a wide-eyed admiration, feelingly expressed, of Houston's charming manners and exquisitely maintained poise.

If Florence in the slightest measure realized how she-for what her judges were pleased to call her latest "affair"-was held by those judges she did not express her knowledge even by a sign. As for Houston, he saw precisely how the companionship was regarded by the small people among whom decency required him to mingle, and the knowledge irritated his nerves.

"The fools!" he exclaimed to Florence one day, "don't they think a fellow can really care for a girl-ever!"

She laughed and told him not to mind, and he was satisfied.

In the beginning Houston had planned to work for the Athens scholarship, an honor within the University's gift much sought, but seldom won save by weary plodders in the library, who when they graduated carried from the campus with their neatly rolled and tubed diplomas no remembrance of the life of their fellows, or of friends made, or of pleasant associations formed.

At first Houston's effort was brave, but at the end of the first semester of his freshman year he was conditioned in one course. The receipt of the little white slip marked his first lapse from academic virtue. Afterward, his course was plainly indicated-a trail clearly marked by empty bottles.

One afternoon in the early part of his junior year, Florence and he were driving on the middle road to Ypsilanti. Below the Poor Farm they turned in at a side lane, over which the branches met. The sun, shining through the green canopy, stenciled the way with shadows that shifted and changed design as the soft wind moved the leaves.

"Jack," Florence said quite seriously, "what made you give up your idea of going in for the scholarship?"

He flecked the horse impatiently with the whip.

"What was the use keeping on?" he replied. "I fell down straight off the bat. I'd like to win it; that's sure enough. It would be fine. I like to work, too; but it's too late now." He sighed. "But there," he exclaimed, turning to her with a smile, "what's the use of crying over spilt milk?"

She was still serious.

"Don't be silly," she reproved. "Why don't you go on with it now? Can't you, dear? Please. Oh, how I'd love to see you win it; and you can if you'll only try!" She clasped her hands eagerly and leaned in front of him.

"Do you suppose I could?" he asked, with some show of earnestness.

"Of course you could!" she cried. "Do try, Jack, dear; please do; for my sake."

The shade was deep where they were, and he stopped the horse and they remained there a space. She planned for him gaily.

"If I could only help you," she murmured tenderly.

"You can-by loving me," he said.

She looked away.

"If I do take up the work to win," he went on, "it'll mean I can't come down so often. How would you like that?" he asked, playfully.

"I shouldn't care." Then she added quickly, a little frightened by the look he gave her. "You know, dear, I didn't mean that! I mean I could stand it-I could stand it for your sake."

"So we both might be happier in the end."

At his words she looked away again.

"Yes," she repeated slowly-"so we both might be happier in the end. Won't you try?" she asked eagerly, after the moment's silence that ensued.

He did not answer her at once. Then suddenly he flapped the reins upon the horse's back and touched the sleek animal with the whip.

"Gad! I will!" he exclaimed. And looking at her he saw a mist in her eyes, and that she had drawn her lower lip between her teeth, which were white upon it.

Moved by her emotion he asked, gently:

"Are you glad?"

"Oh, so glad!" she answered, and there was a tremor in her voice. "I know you'll win," she went on after a moment. "I know, at least you'll make the effort, for you've promised me. You always keep your promises to me, don't you, Jack?"

He laughed lightly. "I couldn't do otherwise," he said. "I couldn't if I tried."

He felt her hand upon his arm, and his heart at that moment filled to overflowing with love for her....

"Crowley, you old parson, I'm going to win that Athens scholarship or bust-or bust; do you understand!" he exploded, later in the day, before his room-mate.

Crowley looked up from the three open books on the table over which he was bent.

"Good for you!" he cried. "Gad; you're more apt to win it now than I am the Rome-the way the work is going."

"You'd better look to your laurels," was the bantering reply. "You just note your little Johnnie's smoke. If he doesn't make the rest of the bunch that's on the same scent look like thirty cents, a year from next June, he'll go jump off the dock; and upon you will devolve the cheerful duty of telegraphing papa!"

And the next day he began.

It was an Herculean task that confronted him and he realized fully the labor necessary to its accomplishment. He dove into the work with an enthusiasm that augured well for the achievement of the end he had in view. He outlined a system; he drafted a schedule of diversion and recreation, which he promised himself he would adhere to. It permitted of meetings with Florence on only two nights of the week. For a month he did not swerve a hair's breath from this plan of employment, but at the end of that period he sent her a brief note breaking an engagement to drive with her on the Sunday following. He beseeched Crowley to call upon her and explain, which Crowley did, while Houston, locked in his room, studied.

During that call Crowley suffered an embarrassment he had never before experienced in Florence's presence. The John Alden part he had been so summarily cast to act, he felt did not fit him. As for Florence, she perceived his discomfort and surmising something of its cause adapted herself to the situation delicately.

"Do you think he'll win?" she asked eagerly after Crowley had made the necessary explanations.

"Win!" he exclaimed. "He'll win or go clear daft, if he keeps on working like he's been doing the past three weeks. He's getting thinner, too," he added-"actually getting thinner; hadn't you noticed?" And he laughed with her at the thought of Houston wearing himself to a shadow over books of archeology. It was very absurd.

Understanding well that Florence had had some hand in the change of Houston's fortunes, he hesitated upon the point of asking her to tell him all about it. They had been very candid in the past. He recalled their walk by the river and the conversation of that afternoon bearing upon Jack's misdeeds. But, for some reason that he could not, for his dulness, fathom now, he did hesitate. Houston had never told him what was the precise relation between him and Florence, and for him now, he thought, in the event of a secret engagement, perhaps, to seek to learn from her what that relation might be-- It was too delicate, he concluded, altogether too delicate.

"I do hope," she said, "you won't let him get sick working so hard."

"Oh, you needn't worry," he replied, significantly, "I don't think there's any immediate danger."

After a moment she said, bluntly: "You haven't any real faith in him, even now, have you, Jim?"

He was a little startled by her question. Had she, he asked himself, been sitting there reading his mind as though it were a show bill, printed in large type? He felt, for the moment, decidedly uncomfortable.

"You haven't, have you?" she repeated.

"Why, yes," he replied, somewhat indefinitely. "Why yes I have, too."

She shook her yellow head and smiled. "I'm afraid not," she said quietly.

And that instant Crowley came nearer achieving a complete understanding of Houston's case than he was destined to again-until long after. He was glad to leave the little round room at the end of half an hour.

For months Jack and Florence had made plans for the Junior Hop of his third year, but the first of February came and with it a realization to Florence that her hopes were destined to be shattered. Jack explained to her, as best he could, that the three days' respite from work after the first-semester examinations could not be that for him.

"I'm up to my eyes, dear," he said-"besides I know you don't care much; you've been to a lot, and as for me I shouldn't care a snap to go over to the Gym. and dance all night. I'm going through the exams, great. I know, dear, I've worked hard, but I must work harder. You understand, don't you?"

Of course she understood. Hop? What was a Hop to her? Pouff! That for them! The same always; a great bore, usually, after one has been to three or four. That was what she said to him, but deep in her heart she was disappointed; not keenly perhaps, but disappointed, nevertheless.

Through the last semester she saw him less frequently, even, than she had during the earlier part of the year.

"I've decided to stay over for summer-school, dear," he said to her one afternoon in mid-June.

She was quite joyful at the prospect.

"We shall go on the river!" she cried. "We shall, shan't we?"

"Of course," he said, earnestly.

But not once did they go. From week to week the excursion was postponed, always by Houston, save once. Then Florence's mother was ill. He was quite prepared on that occasion and suffered some displeasure.

"Never mind, we'll go in the fall, when you come back," Florence said.

In order that he might work during the scant vacation permitted him he carried to his southern home, in August, a case of books.

"You'll write me, dear, often-awfully often, won't you?" he said to Florence the night before he left.

"Of course," she assured him.

And she kept her promise though his letters were infrequent and brief during the interval.

He met her in the little round room the first night he was back. He had carried away with him an impression of her in a soft, fluffy blue gown, but now it was autumn, and she was dressed differently. When she came into the room, his senses suffered a shock from which he did not immediately recover.

She seemed much older. He wondered if it might not be her costume. He could not recall ever before having seen her in gray. He caught himself, once or twice, regarding her curiously, somewhat critically, and marveled at the phenomenon.

She did not chide him for his neglect in not having written her oftener during the two months he had been away. He offered no excuses. It was as though, now, each had forgotten in the other's nearness. Leaving her, he felt that, on the whole, he had got through the evening rather miserably.

The weeks sped on fleet wings. He was deep in his work. He perceived that what, a year before, had appeared but a remote chance of winning the coveted scholarship had now resolved itself into a certain possibility; even more, he considered, with a sense of pride-a probability.

The campus saw little of him, the town scarcely a glimpse, save occasionally of a Saturday evening when he walked to the post-office for his mail. On such evenings he usually stopped at Florence's home on his way to his rooms. The conversation between them at these times was confined almost wholly to his work. All his efforts were concentrated upon the accomplishment of the task he had set before himself.

For the Christmas vacation he went home.

"Father's coming in June," he told Florence on his return. "Said he'd be here big as life and twice as natural-going to bring a cousin of mine-Susie Henderson-you've heard me speak of her."

"Oh...."

"What is it?" He was startled by her exclamation.

She laughed-"I didn't mean to frighten you," she said-"but I pricked myself with this pin"-and she flung upon the table the trinket with which she had been toying.

On his way to his rooms that night he reviewed, casually, his college course; he built air-castles for the days ahead. There would be a year in Athens-perhaps two. Should he and Florence marry before-or after? They had not planned definitely. Of a sudden the idea that they had not smote him forcefully. They had really been living only from day to day; it was wrong; quite wrong, he decided. A settlement should be made at once-at once. He was quite determined. In his room, bent over the books upon the table, he forgot forthwith the resolution he had made. The next day he recalled it-and the next.

Spring came. His winning was now a certainty. The U. of M. Daily accepted his success as assured and dismissed the matter at once with all the cocksureness of collegiate journalism. Now, the hard work done, he could loaf.

Loaf!

The prospect appalled him. Loaf? He had forgotten how! But Florence should teach him all over again, he mused, and smiled.

He went to his dressing-table and picked up her portrait given him two years before. Across the margin at the bottom he read:-"To Jack, from Florence."

After a moment he put the photograph down and searched among the others that littered the table. A little look of puzzlement came into his eyes.

He turned to the front window and gazed out across the maples, their leaves silvered by the moonlight. He stood there some moments watching the face of the night. Then he turned back to his books, doggedly.

"What's the use?" he muttered, sinking into the chair before his study table.