“I come with good news for you, Miss Drummond,” he began. “They haven’t found the escaped prisoner after all.”
“I confess I’m glad,” Dorothea said frankly. “Of course that’s not the thing to say here in the South, but I just can’t help being pleased to think any one has gotten away from Andersonville. Hal said it was silly to look for him about here.”
“It seems to have been,” Tracy answered, and the music striking up, he asked her for the dance.
They whirled away together, not speaking for some moments, and then Val broke in upon her anxious thoughts with a question.
“Suppose, Miss Drummond,” he said, “that a chap found himself growing fond of a certain girl and discovered suddenly that his rival was on the scene, though he nor any one else had had any notion of it. What should he do about it?”
For a moment Dorothea was puzzled. She thought, when he began to speak, that he was making a reference to Stanchfield, but this talk of a rival and a love affair made that impossible. Evidently Tracy was in love with April and had discovered that Hendon was near. He suspected, as she did, that April knew this, and was asking her what he should do.
“How can I answer that, Mr. Tracy?” she replied. “Perhaps there isn’t a rival after all. Perhaps it’s only gossip. At any rate that chap you just spoke of needn’t give up—”
“Don’t you think he need?” he interrupted eagerly. “He might do a good deal if he thought there was a chance for him.”
“He might do anything that was honorable,” she answered.
“And, faith, how can we measure honor?” Val cut in with a touch of bitterness in his voice. “That chap, you know, might have two honors to satisfy. One for the girl he loved and one for the country he served.”