I told her she would wish herself a girl again, and it
was dangerous for her to come, but she only laughed. I have brought you
something, too, Marjorie," he said unsteadily.
But Marjorie ignored it and asked questions about Linnet and her home on
shipboard.
"Have I changed, Marjorie?"
"No," she said. "You cannot change for the better, so why should you
change at all?"
"I don't like that," he returned seriously; "it is rather 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.
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