"If I had the right," flamed up within the cadet, "I'd soon make Mr. Cameron my business, or else I'd be some of his. But it wouldn't be fair. I'm not through West Point yet, and I may never be.

Until my future is fairly a.s.sured I'm not going to ask the sweetest girl on earth to commit her future to my hands. Even if I felt that I could, a cadet is forbidden to marry and a two years' engagement is a fearfully long one to ask of a girl. And a girl like Laura has a chance to meet hundreds of more satisfactory fellows than I in two years."

It required all the young soldier's will power to keep silent on the one subject uppermost in his mind. And even d.i.c.k realized that some very trivial circ.u.mstance was likely to unseat his firm resolve.

What he was trying to act up to was his sense of fairness. Hard as it was under the circ.u.mstances, he was more anxious to be fair to this girl than to any other living being.

"I mustn't spoil her afternoon, just because my own mind is so dizzy!" he thought reproachfully.

So, a moment later, he became merrier than ever---on the surface.

It was Laura's turn to take a covert look at his face. She wondered, for she felt that Prescott's a.s.sumed gayety had an almost feverish note.

"How much further are you going to drive?" she asked presently.

"The only pleasure I recognize in the matter, Laura, is yours.

So I am wholly at your command."

He tried to answer lightly and gallantly, yet felt, an instant later, that his words had had a strained sound.

The same thought had struck the girl.

Yet, instead of asking him to turn the horse's head about, Laura ventured:

"Gridley must be pleasant, as your home town, yet I fancy you are already looking forward to getting back to your ideals at West Point?"

"Is she tired of having me around?" wondered Cadet Prescott, wincing within, as though he had been stabbed.

"I'm keener for West Point, every day, Laura," he answered quietly.

"Yet, even in the case of such a grand old place as the Military Academy, it is worth while to get away once in a while. If it were not for this long furlough, midway in the four years' course, many of us might go mad with the incessant grind."

"Oh, you poor d.i.c.k!" cried Laura Bentley, in quick, genuine sympathy.

"Yes; I think I can quite understand what you say."

And then a new light came into her eyes, as she added, very softly:

"We in Gridley, who hope for you with your own intensity of longings, must take every pains to make this furlough of yours restful enough and full enough of happiness to send you back to West Point with redoubled strength for the grind."

"The same Laura as of yesterday!" cried d.i.c.k with sincere enthusiasm.

"Always wondering how to make life a little sweeter for others!"

"Thank you," she half bowed quietly. "Yes; I want to see your strength proven among strong men."

Again she looked frankly into Prescott's eyes, and he, at the same moment, into hers. His pulses were bounding. What was to become, now, of his resolution to hold back the surging words for at least two more years?

Yet resolutely he stifled the feelings that surged within him.

He was a boy, though the training at West Point was swiftly making him over into a man.

"I may lose her," groaned Cadet Prescott. "I may have lost her already---if I ever had any chance. But a soldier has at least his honor to think of, and no honorable man can ask a woman to give herself to him, and to wait for years, when he isn't reasonably certain he is going to be able to meet the responsibility that he seeks."

Never had Prescott been more earnest, more serious, nor more attentive than during the remainder of that drive. Yet he studiously refrained from giving the girl any hint of the thoughts that were surging within him.

Was he foolish?

d.i.c.k felt, anyway, that he was not, for he was waging a mighty fight to stand by his best sense of honor.

CHAPTER VI

THE SURPRISE THE LAWYER HAD IN STORE

The days went by swiftly, merrily.

d.i.c.k continued to see all that was possible of Laura Bentley, without seeming to try to monopolize her time.

As for careless, good-humored, nearly heart-free Greg, that young man divided his time almost impartially among several very pretty girls. Cadet Holmes had no thought of arousing baseless hopes in any young woman's mind. He simply had not yet reached the age when he was likely to be tied closely by any girl's bright-hued ribbons.

Tom Reade and Harry Hazelton were much with the young West Pointers.

Had Dave Darrin and Dan Dalzell been able to be home from Annapolis at this time, the cup of joy would have been full for all the old chums of d.i.c.k & Co. But that was not to be.

Even Reade and Hazelton were home only on limited leave, for they were still very young engineers, who could not sacrifice much time away from their work lest they lose the ground already gained.

So just after the Fourth of July, Tom and Harry left, on a morning train, the two young West Pointers going to the station to see them off with many a handshake, many a yearning wish for the two dear old chums of former days.

"The blamed old town will seem a bit empty, won't it?" demanded Greg, as the cadet pair strolled back from the railway station.

"What'll it be in after years," sighed d.i.c.k, "with you up at some fort on the Great Lakes, say, with me in Boston, Tom and Harry somewhere out West, with Dave on the European station and Dan, perhaps, on the China station? Oh, well, chums who want to stick together through life should go in for jobs in the same factory!"

"I suppose we'll get more used to being apart, as the years roll on," muttered Greg. "But I know it would be mighty jolly, this summer, if all the fellows of d.i.c.k & Co. could be here in Gridley."

"There's Bert Dodge," whispered Prescott.

"It was hardly worth the trouble to tell me anything about him,"

retorted Holmes, not taking the trouble to look at their ancient enemy.

"But what a scowl the fellow is wearing," smiled d.i.c.k, half in amus.e.m.e.nt.

"Scowling is his highest pleasure in life," returned Greg.

"He looked at me," continued d.i.c.k, as though he had discovered some new reason for hating me."

"If he knew how little thought you gave to him he wouldn't really take the trouble to hate you. Dodge has far more reason to dislike himself. Where are you heading now?"

"Home and to the store," replied d.i.c.k. "I just saw the postman leaving. Come along."

As d.i.c.k and his chum entered, both his father and mother were behind the counter.