Part of that first check went to the photographer, for every one of the fifteen Freshmen claimed a picture, and many of the Seniors who had worshipped her from afar when they were Freshmen, and she the star of the Senior class, begged the same favour.  The one which fell to Mary’s share stood on her dressing-table several days and then disappeared.  She felt disloyal when some of the other girls who kept theirs prominently displayed, came in and looked around inquiringly.  She evaded their questions but was moved to confess to Betty herself one day.

“I—­I—­sent your picture to Jack.  Just for him to look at and send right back, you know, but he won’t send it, I hope you don’t mind.  He says he needs it to keep him from forgetting what the ideal American girl is like.  They don’t have them in Lone-Rock.  There isn’t any young society there at all.  And he was so interested in hearing about your literary successes.  You know he has always been interested in you ever since Joyce came back from the first house-party and told us about you.”

That Betty blushed when Mary proceeded to further confessions and quoted Jack’s remarks about her picture is not to be wondered at, and that Mary should see the blush and promptly report it in her next letter to Jack was quite as inevitable.  She had no idea how many times during his busy days his glance rested on the photograph on his desk.

It was not the typical American girl as portrayed by Gibson or Christy, but it pleased him better in every way.  He liked the sweet seriousness of the smooth brows, the steady glance of the trustful brown eyes, and the little laughter lines about the mouth.  Back in God’s country, he sometimes mused, fellows knew girls like that.  Played golf and tennis with them, rode with them, picnicked with them, sat out in the moonlight with them, talking and singing in a spirit of gay comradery that they only half-appreciated, because they had never starved for want of it as he was doing.

It hadn’t been so bad at the Wigwam, for Joyce was always doing something to keep things stirred up; making the most of the material at hand.  It wasn’t that he minded the grind and the responsibility of his work.  He would gladly have shouldered more in his zeal to push ahead.  It was the thought that all work and no play was making him the proverbial dull boy, and that he would be an old man before his time, if he went on without anything to relieve the deadly monotony.  The spirit of youth in him was crying out for kindred companionship.

All unconscious of the interest she was arousing, Mary filled her letters with reference to Betty; how they all adored her, and how she was always in demand as a chaperon, because she was just a girl herself and could understand how they felt and was such good fun.  Presently when word came that she had scored another triumph, that one of the leading magazines had accepted a short story, Jack was moved to send her a note of congratulation.