Mr. Furlong, having permission to go to the hotel for Miss Wilton, started off, moving at his best soldier's step. After registering at the hotel office, in the book kept for that purpose, as every cadet is required to do, Mr. Furlong hoped for several minutes of talk with his pretty partner, either in a corner of the parlor, or on the veranda. Only the parlor and the veranda are open to cadets having permission to call at the hotel.

Greg, having no companion to go after, brought out his stool and seated himself beside d.i.c.k in front of the tent.

"Why don't you go over to the hop tonight, d.i.c.k?" Greg asked.

"Mainly because I don't wish to," replied Prescott, with a smile.

"Granted. But I am rather wondering why you don't wish to."

"I think you can keep a secret, Greg," replied his old Gridley chum, looking quizzically at Holmes. "Greg, I'm too awfully lonesome to trust myself at the hop tonight.

"Eh? Why, old ramrod, the hop ought to be the very place to lose that lonesome feeling."

"Just what I'm afraid of," responded Prescott.

"You---eh---huh! You're talking riddles now.

"Greg, a cadet can't marry. Or, if he does, his marriage acts as an automatic resignation, and he's dropped from the cadet corps."

"I know all that," Holmes a.s.sented.

"Now, here at West Point, with this nearly male-convent life, a fellow often gets so blamed lonesome that almost any girl looks fine to him, Greg. First thing he knows, a cadet, being a natural gallant, anyway, goes so far in being spoons with some girl that he has to act like a gentleman, then, and declare intentions.

A fellow can't show a nice girl a whole lot of spoony attentions, and then back off, letting the girl discover that he has been only fooling all summer. You've heard, Greg, of plenty of cadets who have engaged themselves while here at the Academy."

"Yes," nodded Greg. "There's no regulation against a cadet becoming engaged to a girl. The regulation only forbids him to marry while he's a cadet."

"Now, a fellow like one of us either goes so far, in his lonesomeness, that he's grateful to a bright girl for cheering him and imagines he's in love with her; or else he finds that the girl thought he was in love with her, and she expects him to propose. Greg, I don't want to make any mistakes that way. It's easy for a cadet to capture the average girl's heart; it's his uniform, I suppose, for women always have been weak when uniforms enveloped fellows who otherwise wouldn't attract their notice. Greg, I wonder how many cadets have been lonesome enough to propose to some girl, and afterwards find out it was all a mistake? And how many girls fall in love with the uniform, thinking all the while that it's the fellow in the uniform? How many cadets and girls recover from the delusion only in after years when it's too late. I tell you, Greg, when a fellow gets into this cadet life, I think the practice of going too often to a hop may be dangerous for cadets and girls alike!

"I'll get cold feet if I listen to you long," laughed yearling Holmes grimly. "I wonder if I'd better pull these gloves off and stay where I am?"

"I didn't have any idea of seeking to persuade you," d.i.c.k replied.

"If you feel proof against the danger, run right over to Cullum and enjoy yourself."

"I was just thinking," mused Greg, "of a promise you and Dave Darrin made some girls back in Gridley."

"I remember that promise," nodded d.i.c.k.

"You and Darrin promised Laura Bentley and Belle Meade that you'd each invite them to hops, you to West Point and Dave to Annapolis, just as soon as either one of you had a right to attend hops."

"I know," nodded Prescott.

Greg was silent. After a few moments d.i.c.k ventured:

"Greg, I kept that promise the day we moved into encampment---the first day that I was a yearling."

"Oh! Are Laura and Belle coming on West Point soon?" Holmes asked eagerly.

"I don't know. I'll be mighty glad when I do know. But undoubtedly Darrin has invited them to Annapolis, too. Now, it may be that, even if the girls can get away to travel a bit, they can't go to West Point and to Annapolis in the same season. So the girls may be trying to make up their minds---which."

"I hope they come here," murmured Holmes fervently.

"So do I," Prescott replied promptly.

"d.i.c.k---do you---mind if I ask a question," demanded Greg slowly.

"No," smiled d.i.c.k, "for I think I know what it is."

"Are you---is Laura---I mean-----"

"You wonder whether Laura and I had any understanding before I left Gridley? That's what you want to know?"

"That is what I was wondering."

"There is no understanding between us--not the least," Prescott replied. "I don't know whether Laura would consent to one, now or later. I don't know myself yet, either, Greg. I want to wait until I have grown some in mind. Laura Bentley is such a magnificent girl that it would be a crime to make any mistake either as to her feelings or mine."

"Do you think good old Dave and Belle Meade had any understanding before Dave left Gridley?"

"Dave went away after we did," Prescott answered. "So I can't be sure. But I don't believe Dave and Belle are pledged in any way."

"Funny game, the whole thing!" sighed Greg, rising. He had drawn off one of his white lisle-thread gloves, but now he was engaged in putting it on again.

"Confidence deserves to be paid in the same coin, Greg," warned his chum. "Did you leave any girl---back in Gridley---or elsewhere."

"d.i.c.k, old ramrod," replied Cadet Holmes, frankly, as he finished drawing on his glove, "I'm unpledged, and, to the best of my belief, I'm wholly heart free."

"Look out that you keep so for two or three years more, then,"

laughed d.i.c.k, and Holmes, nodding lightly, strode away.

Despite the hop, there were some visitors in camp that evening.

d.i.c.k was presently invited over to join a group that was entertaining three college boys who had dropped off at West Point for two or three days.

Greg spent an hour or so at the hop. He was introduced to Miss Wilton, a pretty, black-eyed little girl, and danced one number with her. He presently secured another partner. But too many of the cadets were "stagging it" that night. There were not feminine partners enough to go around.

"My cue is to cut out, I guess," mused Greg, finding himself near the entrance to the ballroom.

Once outside, Greg drew off his gloves, thrusting them in under the breast of his gray uniform coat. He wasn't quite decided whether to go back to Cullum later. But at present he wanted to stroll in the dark and to think.

"I reckon I'll take d.i.c.k's line of philosophy, and cut girls a good deal," decided Greg. "Yet, at West Point in the summer, it's either girls or mischief. Mischief, if carried too far, gets a fellow bounced out of the Academy, while girls---I wonder which is safer?"

Still guessing, Cadet Holmes wandered a good way from Cullum Hall, and was not again seen that night on the polished dancing floor.

Anstey had gone visiting some other yearlings. d.i.c.k, after leaving the college boys and their hosts, felt that a slow stroll outside of camp would be one of the pleasantest ways of pa.s.sing the time until taps at 10.30. Even after the rain, the night was close and sultry.

"Don't you sing, Prescott?" called a first cla.s.sman as d.i.c.k pa.s.sed near the head of the color line. "Some of our glee-club fellows are getting together to try some old home songs."

But d.i.c.k shook his head. Though he possessed a fair voice, the singing of sentimental or mournful ditties was not in his line that night. He heard the strumming of guitars and mandolins as he left camp behind.