"Be very careful, I beg of you, my dear boy," exclaimed the Admiral, as Jermyn started away. "Miss Trewman is a most estimable young woman, but she has a mind of her own."
"So much the better. It probably will teach her to have proper respect for other peoples' minds."
"But mayn't I suggest——"
"Perhaps—when I return."
With that reply, the Admiral looked miserable and undecided, and he finally persuaded some one to join him at a game of checkers, which to that day he had thought the last refuge of an adult mind which also was diseased.
Jermyn hurried toward the hotel, determined to take whatever misfortune might come to him, rather than be annoyed by more accidents. As to Trixy—Jermyn had always liked children, and years before, he had made a reputation on a western bound train, and afterward in the service, by caring all night for a fretful child so that the infant's mother might get some needed rest. He wished he might have charge of Trixy for a few days; she was Trif's child, and Trif was to him the ideal woman, and it was impossible that the child should not have inherited some of her mother's estimable qualities; but if Trixy had been making new and unexpected trouble for him, he wished there might be excuse for putting her into the most remote casemate of the fort, locking the door, and losing the key.
As he thought and fretted, he entered the hotel and made his way through office and parlor toward the ball-room, where every one who did not dance congregated to look at every one who did. He nodded to several acquaintances, but his thoughts were entirely about Trixy until he was recalled to better command of himself by the sound of a well-remembered voice:
"Oh, Mr. Jermyn! What an unexpected pleasure! We were told that you would be away several days."