"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. But she had given it a higher significance than he had given it; she had never once thought of it in connection with any human love.
"How often do you write to Hollis?" he inquired at last.
"I do not write to him at all," she answered.
"Why not? Has something happened?" he said, eagerly.
"I suppose so."
"Don't you want to tell me? Does it trouble you?"
"Yes, I want to tell you, I do not think that it troubles me now. He has never—answered my last letter."