Yet Dick Prescott stepped before him, thrusting him quietly aside with a manner that was not to be overridden.
"Don't touch it, Greg!" he ordered in a low voice that was none the less compelling.
"But you shan't send that resignation in!" quivered Greg.
"My dear boy, you know very well that I shall!"
"Have you no thought for me?" Cadet Holmes demanded.
"My going may put you in a blue streak for a week, old fellow, but it will put me in a blue streak for a lifetime. Yet there's no other way for me. What's the use of being an ostracized officer in the service? With you, Greg, old chum, it is different. You will, after a little, be very happy in the Army."
"Happy in the—-nothing!" exploded Greg. "I told you, weeks ago, that if you quit the service, I would do the same thing."
"But you won't," urged Dick. "In these weeks you have had time to reflect and turn sensible."
"Do you suppose I care to go on, old chum, if you don't?"
"Yes," answered Dick quietly. "And if the case were reversed, and you were resigning, I should go on just the same and stick in the service. Why, Greg, if we both went on into the Army, and under the happiest conditions, we wouldn't be together, anyway. You might be in one regiment, down in Florida, and I in another out in the Philippines. When I was serving in Cuba, you'd be in Alaska. Don't be foolish, Greg. I've got to leave, but there's no earthly reason why you should. Your resigning would be mistaken loyalty to me, and would cast no rebuke or regret over the cadet corps or the Army. The fellows who are going to stick would simply feel that one weak-kneed chap had dropped by the wayside. They'd merely march on and forget you."