Page:Harvey O'Higgins--Don-a-dreams.djvu/64

 and have a cottage at the lake to spend their summers in. He would not care if he were never famous—unless, of course, she wished him to be. All he wanted was to make her happy. He felt he could do that because he—he hesitated a long time over the word; he had never known anyone to use it outside of a book. But there was no other word for it; he understood that women expected a man to say it; and with a tremulous pen he wrote it—because he loved her.

He signed it, blushing like a girl, and then he turned his back on the window, put his head down, and shamefacedly kissed the paper. He ran out to post it, so as to have it away from his eyes as soon as possible; and he sat down to wait for the reply.

He was still waiting when his father, coming home from his office early, sent the maid upstairs to tell Don that he was wanted in the library. He went downstairs frightened. His father was sitting by his smoking-table with a newspaper in his hand. "Well," he said, "you've failed in your examinations."

Don's first thought was that it would postpone his marriage.

"Mr. McCutcheon tells me that your work during the Spring term was uniformly bad."

Postpone his marriage! What would she say to that?

"I think I warned you that—what would happen if you continued to waste your time. Your brother has passed his examinations at the head of his class."

To work hard! To get rich! He had failed at the very beginning!