"You have driven out here before—-with Mr. Cameron?"
The words were out ere Cadet Prescott could recall them. He felt indescribably angry with himself. In the first place, the question he had asked was really none of his business. In the second place, his inquiry, under the circumstances, was a rude one.
"Mr. Cameron was in the party," Laura replied readily. "There was quite a number of us; it was a 'bus ride one May afternoon. We came out to gather wild flowers."
"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 assured 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 Dick realized that some very trivial circumstance 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 circumstances, 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 assumed gayety had an almost feverish note.
"How much further are you going to drive?" she asked presently.