“Oh!” Mollie exclaimed, a silvery laugh rippling over her lips. “I had become so interested in telling the story that I had forgotten all about the ring. Yes. I was so grateful that I wanted to make it manifest personally, and I went to him, when we arrived in New Haven, thanked him, and asked him to accept the cameo as a memento of my gratitude.”
“Did you learn the name of this most wonderful of heroes?” queried Philip sarcastically.
Mollie sat suddenly erect, stung to the quick and flushing indignantly at the satirical fling.
“Why do you speak so slightingly about him, Philip?” she cried; “don’t you love to hear about brave deeds? Aren’t you glad to know that there are such noble and heroic souls in the world?”
“Oh, yes, of course. Did I speak slightingly? You must pardon me, but, truly, Mollie, I was somewhat amused, in view of your enthusiasm over this valorous backwoodsman,” Philip replied, with a laugh that had something of mockery in it.
“I think I have reason to be enthusiastic,” the fair girl coldly responded. “Yes,” she added, “I did learn the young man’s name—Clifford Faxon, he gave it, and I wish——”
“Well, what do you wish?” her companion demanded, and finding it difficult to control himself as she had pronounced the name he so hated, notwithstanding he had been prepared to hear it.
“I wish that I might meet him again. I would like to know if he attempted to go through college, and, if so, what success he is having,” said Mollie, with an earnest look on her face. “I am sure he will ultimately succeed in whatever he undertakes, for there was strength of purpose written on every line of his handsome face.”
Philip Wentworth gnawed his lip until the blood started, and a cruel, steellike glitter flashed into his eyes at this. He was furious, in view of the girl’s interest in the young man whom he had hated for years. It galled him almost beyond endurance to hear Clifford Faxon’s praises sounded by every one who knew him, but Mollie’s encomiums drove him almost to the verge of madness, and he was determined that she should never learn that Faxon had been a classmate of his—she should never meet her hero again if he could help it.