"I'm sorry, Tom," faltered Grace, "but I can't. I am fonder of you than any other man I know, but it is the fondness of long friendship. I'm not looking forward to marriage. It is my work that interests me most. I don't love you as Anne loves David, and Jessica and Nora love Reddy and Hippy. I don't believe I know what love means. I don't wish to hurt you, but I must be perfectly honest with myself and with you. I can only say that I care for no one else, and that perhaps someday I may care as much as you." Grace gazed sorrowfully at Tom as she ended. She knew by the tightening of his lips and the nervous squaring of his broad shoulders that she had hurt him sorely. "All right, Grace," he said with brave finality. "I'll try to be content with your friendship and live in the hope of that 'someday.' I'm going to be selfish enough to dream that there will come a time when even your work won't be able to crowd out love." Grace made no reply. She felt that there was nothing to be said. The bare idea that there might come a time when her beloved work would fail to fill her life was not to be considered, even for a moment. Love was a vague, far-distant possibility. It might come to her, and again it might not. But her work--that lay directly before her. The glory of life was not love, but achievement. Her eyes grew rapt with purpose, and, as Tom wistfully scanned her changeful face, it fell upon him with a sudden sinking of the heart that for him the longed-for "someday" might never come. CHAPTER VII THE RETURN OF EMMA DEAN "'A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse!'" chanted a voice in Grace Harlowe's ear. Grace whirled about, almost dropping the suit case and golf bag she carried. "Why, Emma, _Emma Dean_!" she exclaimed, her voice rising high in astonishment. [Illustration: "Why, Emma Dean!" Exclaimed Grace.] "Yes, it's Emma, _Emma Dean_," returned Emma humorously. "It is I, me, myself and all the other personally personal pronouns that stand for your old friend, Emily Elizabeth Dean." "Wherever did you come from and--oh, Emma"--as the tall thin young woman pointed significantly to two heavy suit cases and a small leather bag huddled together on the station platform--"you aren't really--are you--" "I am," interrupted Emma cheerfully. "I couldn't stay away. I knew you'd need a comforter this year, so I applied for the position and you can see for yourself how successful I was. Professor Morton was so grateful to me for applying that he said with tears in his eyes, 'Emma, I can't tell you how happy it makes me--'" "Emma Dean, stop talking nonsense and tell me how you really happened to be here. It's too good to be true." Grace beamed fondly on her tall, humorous classmate who had been a never-failing source of amusement to the Wayne Hall girls.