They saw a bright light ahead and trudged steadily toward it, prodding
themselves--and each other--with all the vain-glorious artifices known
to and employed by the young and undefeated. The young man's dramatic
aspirations were somewhat retarded, however, by the fact that he was
so desperately enamoured that he couldn't confine his thoughts to the
play; so the growth of the first act was slow and tortuous. Under
other conditions he would have despaired of ever completing the thing.
As it was, his despair was of an entirely different character and had
to do with the belief that Miss Colgate loved some one else instead of
him.
But even doubt and uncertainty possess virtue in that they often lead
to rashness, sometimes folly. In this case, Mr. Flanders proposed
marriage, albeit he couldn't, for the life of him, see how he was
going to manage on a salary of twenty-five dollars a week. That was
the rashness of it. Miss Colgate attended to the folly. She said she
would marry him if it meant starvation. So there you are.
After that, ambition revived and worked smoothly, rapidly.
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