"No," she answered, laughing with the rest, but blushing furiously. "I
had just been reading the biography of a great Baltimore belle who was
called that, and it appealed to me as the most desirable thing on earth
to be honoured with such a title. But that was away back in the dark
ages. Of course I wouldn't wish such a silly thing now."

"But aren't you going to tell us what _is_ your greatest ambition?"
persisted Phil. "We have all confessed. It isn't fair for you to
withhold your confidence when we've given ours."

Mary shook her head. "I've had my lesson," she declared. "You'll never
have the chance to laugh twice, and this one is such a sky-scraper it
would astonish you."

When she spoke, she was thinking of that moment on the stair, under the
amber window, when through the music she heard the king's call, and was
first awakened to the knowledge that a high destiny awaited her. What it
was to be was still unrevealed to her, but of the voice and the vision
she had no doubt. Whatever it was she was sure it would be higher and
greater than anything any one she knew aspired to. Yet somehow, sitting
there in the friendly shadows, with the firelight shining on the earnest
manly face opposite, she did not care so much about a Joan of Arc career
as she had. It would be glorious, of course, but it might be lonesome.
People on pedestals were shut off from dear delightful intimacies like
this.

And then those lines began running through her head that she had not
been able to get rid of, since the morning she read them in the
magazine: