Oh, joy unmeasured in the time of spring! No other February like that had ever been for them—nor ever would be. The drive came to an end, the day came to an end, but the good-nights, which were good-bys, too, were not so fraught with hopelessness as he had dreaded, for the promise asked and given paved a broad road illuminated by the most hopeful kind of stars,—a broad road leading straight from college to town,—and his fancy showed him a figure treading it often. A figure that was his own. 

 

Chapter Eight The Resolution He Took

 That first meeting was in February, you know, and by the last of April it had been followed by so many others that Burnett remarked one day to his chum: 

 “Say, aren’t you going a little faster than auntie’ll stand for?” 

 Jack turned in surprise. 

 “I never went so straight in my life before,” he exclaimed, not in indignation but in astonishment. 

 “I didn’t mean that,” said Burnett. “Perhaps instead of ‘auntie’ I should have said ‘Betty.’” 

 Jack hoisted the colors of Harvard, and was silent. 

 “I warned you at first that that was Tangle town,” his friend went on. “Don’t suppose I’m saying anything against her—or against you; but she’s just as much to ten other men as she is to you, and they all are old enough to carry lots of weight.” 

 “And I suppose I’m not,” Jack answered, going over by the fireplace. “I know that as well as anyone, of course.” 

 “Natürlich,” said Burnett, with conclusiveness that was not meant to be cruel, yet cut like a two edged knife. 

 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.” 

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