He did
not know where the assurance came from, but he had little fear of
Saunders now. Next summer Saunders would be away on leave, anyhow. Sam
knew, if no one else did, that he had actually fought for the hand of
Miss Hunter; and, tho he had been defeated, had not Smith admitted that
his defeat was a practical victory? He felt that he had won Miss
Hunter's hand in mortal combat, and he dismissed from his mind all
doubt on the subject.
CHAPTER IV
War and Business
[Illustration]
Marian Hunter was, as we have already surmised, a lady of experience.
She was possessed, as is not uncommonly the case with young ladies at
East Point, of an uncontrollable passion for things military. Manhood
and brass buttons were with her interconvertible terms, and the idea of
uniting her young life to a plain civilian seemed to her nothing less
than shocking. The pleasures of her first two or three summers at East
Point and of her first half-dozen engagements had partaken of the bliss
of heaven. The engagements had never been broken off, they had simply
dissolved one into the other, and she had felt herself rising from step
to step in happiness. Naturally her conquests filled her with a supreme
confidence in her charms. She was not especially fickle by nature, but
she discovered that a first-class cadet, particularly if he was an
officer and had black feathers in his full-dress hat, was far more
attractive to think of than a supernumerary second lieutenant assigned
to duty in some Western garrison.
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