Hayward spoke lightly, but his last words brought to Helen the same question which had occurred to her so often in the last year since she had discovered in him her father's rescuer. They only made the question more insistent.
He was a Harvard man,—to Helen's mind a title of all excellence and dignity. That explained much. His intelligence, even his physical grace and soldierly courage, seemed to fit naturally into that character. But why a flunkey?—shirking higher duties and the honours that pertained to his degree, careless of the evidence of his scholarly merit, putting aside the rewards of his soldierly heroism.
"Do you care nothing for everything, Hayward?—except this flag? You seem to have valued it."
"It is the one possession dearest to my heart," he answered in simple truth, and then showed the first faint trace of embarrassment she had ever seen him exhibit.
"Yes, you have loved the Harvard pennant but concealed your Harvard lineage. You champion Harvard's name enthusiastically against Jimmie Radwine's gibes, but you affect to be careless of Harvard's diploma. You carry the Harvard culture, and yet—you choose to be a footman."
Hayward winced. Helen tempered the thrust by adding:
"You do a soldier's work, but decline a soldier's honours. You are too modest. You overdo the part."
"I hope yet to do something worthy of Harvard, Miss Helen. I am not without ambition, however much you may think it. Indeed I fear I have too much ambition."
A Harvard man need set no limit to his ambition. Helen spoke with the wisdom and confidence of youth and loyalty.
The launch was at the landing. The girl climbed out and up the steep stairs. At the top she bethought herself and turned about.