"I can't report him," he reflected. "I know I'm going back on my rank, on my duty, on my principles, on what I've preached ever since I've been at the Academy. The contemptible hound! He ought to be kicked out! It's a shame that such a despicable person should have such a fine father and mother—and—and sister. It's outrageous that he should remain here. But his father saved my father—I can't report him; it would utterly disgrace Captain Blunt—I'm full of gratitude to him—I suppose I have no right to let that gratitude interfere with my duty; but I can't help myself."
For the next hour Robert indulged himself in many bitter reflections, but his conclusions were unchanged, and he deliberately determined to keep to himself what he had learned, neither to report Harry Blunt nor to tell even Stonewell what he had seen.
Stonewell came in a little before ten o'clock. "What's the matter with you, Bob?" he asked almost roughly. "Do you think you treated the Blunts very politely? You spoiled Helen's evening, and I could see Captain and Mrs. Blunt were concerned; they must have thought you acted very queerly, to say the least."
"I'm sorry, Stone—I couldn't help it. Please don't talk about it to me."
Stonewell glanced keenly at his roommate's worried face. "Look here, Bob, when you went out to the pantry did you see young Blunt? Has that scamp been Frenching again?"
"Stone, except once, you have practically never discussed your personal matters with me; I never insist on it, intimate as we are. Now this is a personal matter of a kind that I just can't talk about; please don't expect me to."
"All right, Bob; but it's my opinion you feel you ought to report Blunt for Frenching and you feel you can't because you're under obligation of lasting gratitude to his father; and so you feel you're going back on your principles, and so forth. Now you were not on duty; no reasonable man would expect you to violate your own feelings to that extent. So cheer up, Bob; I'll tell you right now that if when I'm not on duty I find young Blunt Frenching in his father's house, I most certainly shall not report him."
To this Robert made no comment, but in his heart thought that if his roommate knew what a scoundrel Blunt was, that Stonewell would be the very first to report him.
Taps soon sounded, and before long Robert was in bed; but long hours passed before sleep came to him. "What a lot of terrible rogues I've been mixed up with," was one of the thoughts that came to his mind; "there was Hillman, Ramsay, Williams, and now this detestable Blunt. And of them all I fear Blunt is the worst."
The next afternoon Stonewell went to Blunt's room and found that young man there alone. "Hello, Stone," greeted Blunt; "but now that football is over perhaps I should say Mister Stonewell to the five striper."