"Just about. Then I owe Craney and Watts quite a lot. I lost a hundred in cash in the first place. I never saw such luck in all my life! And now, instead of going back to Prescott, I've got to skip for the war-path. Watts says the money he gave me in chips he owes to others who were in the game at one time or other, and he needs currency, not I.O.U.'s. Looks like a regular combine, doesn't it?"
"You couldn't expect to win—everything there was in sight," said Harris quietly.
Willett flushed again. He had slipped from the broad arm to the narrow camp chair recently occupied by the doctor. Harris was displaying unexpected resistance. Willett had been accustomed to speedier surrender to his advances.
"It's more on that account than any other I hate to leave here with these things hanging over me," he answered moodily. Then, by way of expediting matters, "Time's mighty short—short as I am—and Watts says you have a stack of greenbacks in the safe."
Again silence a moment. Then Harris turned fully upon his visitor and spoke deliberately.
"You ask me to do what I declared three years ago I never would do, and that I have refused to do ever since—loan a man money with which to gamble or pay gambling debts. I need this money, Willett, to send home. I've been saving and sending home ever since I joined, but that's not why I won't play—and don't drink."
"Oh, we know how virtuous you are!" began Willett, with something like a sneer, but was checked with sudden, startling force. Harris almost sprang from his chair.
"None of that, Willett!" he cried, his voice harsh with anger. "Your ways and mine are wide apart, but I'll stand no sneering. You come to me for help and you're going to get it, not because you scoff at my views, but in spite of it; not for your sake, but that of the old Academy. You and I are the only West Pointers at this post, bar the dear old general. You and I are classmates, and I know you, and don't believe in you, but the money's yours for the asking. You say you come to me as an old friend, and I have never had faith in your friendship. I know how other men's and some women's names have suffered at your hands, and I don't know what you may have done to mine, but——" and now Harris was on his feet, standing over Willett—sitting there gripping the frail arms of a canvas-covered straddle-box, and looking up into the elder soldier's—the junior officer's—face in amaze. Never before had Willett been so braved by man or woman—"But your name shall be protected for just two reasons—and protected just so long as you can show you're worth it. But—Willett, I'm not preaching on drink or gambling now. There's another thing you've got to stop—or I'm done with you." And then Harris himself stopped short.
"I don't know what you mean," began Willett, shifting uneasily.
"You do know what I mean! You've only to go back to your graduating June, when you were spooning day and night over a society flirt there at the hotel—a married woman at that—and your mantel-shelf was stacked high with unopened, unanswered letters from the poor girl you were engaged to. You were, Willett, in sight of God and man, so don't deny it! And she was telegraphing to me in pity to say was Harold sick—or what. She broke with you, of course, after you broke her heart. And you've been at that sort of thing ever since, unless the Division of the Pacific is a nest of liars—oh, bosh! I don't count Case, though it's like enough he told the truth. But now, Willett, you're here! and—what have we to expect at Almy?"