ll upon the active list, with four years
of service ahead of him. He was to be the next Aide on Personnel, the
knowing ones said, and the orders were being looked for every day.
Therefore he was decidedly a personage to tie to--more important even
than the Secretary, himself, who was a mere figurehead in the
Department. And the officers--and their wives, too, if they were
married--crowded around the Westons, fairly walking over one another in
their efforts to be noticed.

"What's the meaning of it?" Croyden asked Miss Cavendish as they joined
the dancing throng. "Are the Westons so amazingly popular?"

"Not at all! they're hailing the rising sun," she said--and explained:
"They would do the same if he were a mummy or had small-pox. 'Grease,'
they call it."

(The watchword, in the Navy, is "grease." From the moment you enter the
Academy, as a plebe, until you have joined the lost souls on the
retired list, you are diligently engaged in greasing every one who
ranks you and in being greased by every one whom you rank. And the more
assiduous and adroit you are at the greasing business, the more
pleasant the life you lead. The man who ranks you can, when placed over
you, make life a burden or a pleasure as his fancy and his disposition
dictate. Consequently the "grease," and the higher the rank the greater
the "grease," and the number of "greasers.")

"Well-named!--dirty, smeary, contaminating business," said Croyden.
"And the best 'greasers' have the best places, I reckon. I prefer the
unadorned garb of the civilian--and independence. I'll permit those
fellows to fight the battles and draw the rewards--they can do both
very well."

He did not get another dance with her until well toward the end--and
would not then, if the lieutenant to whom it belonged had not been a
second late--late enough to lose her.

"We are going back to Washington, in the morning," she said. "Can't you
come along?"

"Impossible!" he answered. "Much as I'd like to do it."

She looked up at him, quickly.

"Are you sure you would like to do it?" she asked.

"What a question!" he exclaimed.

"Geoffrey!--what is this business which keeps you here--in the East?"

"Business!" he replied, smiling.

"Which means, I must not ask, I suppose."

He did not answer.

"Will you tell me one thing--just one?" she persisted. "Has Royster &
Axtell's failure anything to do with it?"

"Yes--it has!" he said, after a moment's hesitation.

"And is it