“See those fights down there—­so few—­and so faint.  We can’t live our lives there.  Seventy-five dollars a month in the bank for you—­and dull, deadly monotony for both of us—­no dreams—­no adventures—­nothing big and fine!  We can’t be content with that!  Why don’t you go, John?

“Don’t mind me—­don’t let me keep you—­for as soon as you’ve won, you can come back to me—­and then—­we’ll see the world together!”

“Janet—­Janet!” said Harber, with pounding heart.  “How do you know—­that I’ll win?”

“Ah,” she said strangely, “I know!  You can’t fail—­I won’t let you fail”!

Harber caught her suddenly in his arms and kissed her as if it were to be his last token of her.

“I’m going then!” he whispered.  “I’m going!”

“When?”

“There’s no time to be lost!” he said, thinking fast.  “If I had known that you were willing, that you would wait—­if ...  Janet, I’m going to-morrow!”

Her arms tightened about him convulsively.  “Promise me—­promise me!” she demanded tensely, “that you’ll never, never forget me—­that you’ll come back to me!”

Harber laughed in her face.  “Janet,” he said solemnly, “I’ll never forget you.  I’ll come back to you.  I’ll come back—­’though ’twere ten thousand mile!’”

And they walked home slowly, wrapt once more in their fascinating talk, fanning the flames of one another’s desires, painting for their future the rich landscapes of paradise.  Youth!  Brave, hot youth!

The next day Harber contemptuously threw over his job in the bank and fared forth into the wide world that was calling.

* * * * *

Well, he went south, then east, then west, and west, and farther west.  So far that presently, after three years, he found himself not west at all, but east—­far east.  There were between him and Janet Spencer now thousands on thousands of miles of vast heaving seas, and snow-capped mountain ranges, and limitless grassy plains.

Three years of drifting!  You’d say, perhaps, knowing the frailty of vows, that the connection might have been lost.  But it hadn’t.  Harber was but twenty-three.  Faithfulness, too, comes easier then than later in life, when one has seen more of the world, when the fine patina of illusion has worn off.  Besides, there was, I’m sure, a touch of genius about that girl, so that one wouldn’t forget her easily, certainly not in three years.  And then, you know, Harber had had her letters.  Not many of them.  Perhaps a dozen to the year.

Pitifully few, but they were filled with a wonderful fascination against which the realities of his wandering life had been powerless to contend.  Like a slender cable they bound him—­they held him!

Well, he was in Sydney now, standing on the water-front, beneath a bright-blue Australian sky, watching the crinkling water in the Circular Quay as it lifted and fell mightily but easily, and seeing the black ships ... ah, the ships!  Those masterful, much more than human, entities that slipped about the great world nosing out, up dark-green tropical rivers in black, fir-bound fjords, through the white ice-flows of the Arctics, all its romance, all its gold!  Three years hadn’t dulled the keen edge of his appetite for all that; rather had whetted it.