ake me his enemy as I make him
mine. No; dash it all! He has been like a brother to me ever since he
was so high, and I'll be d----d if there shan't be fair play between us
two, though I should go into the army through it. But I'll watch, and
see how things go."

So he watched at dinner and afterwards, but saw little to comfort him.
Saw one thing, nay, two things, most clearly. One was, that Cecil
Mayford was madly in love with Alice; and the other was, that poor
Cecil was madly jealous of Sam. He treated him differently to what he
had ever done before, as though on that evening he had first found his
rival. Nay, he became almost rude, so that once Jim looked suddenly up,
casting his shrewd blue eyes first on one and then on the other, as
though to ask what the matter was. But Sam only said to himself, "Let
him go on. Let him say what he will. He is beside himself now, and some
day he will be sorry. He shall have fair play, come what will."

But it was hard for our lad to keep his temper sometimes. It was hard
to see another man sitting alongside of her all the evening, paying her
all those nameless little attentions which somehow, however
unreasonably, he had brought himself to think were his right, and no
one else's, to pay. Hard to wonder and wonder whether or no he had
angered her, and if so, how? Halbert, good heart! saw it all, and
sitting all the evening by Sam, made himself so agreeable, that for a
time even Alice herself was forgotten. But then, when he looked up, and
saw Cecil still beside her, and her laughing and talking so pleasantly,
while he was miserable and unhappy, the old chill came on his heart
again, and he thought--was the last happy week only a deceitful gleam
of sunshine, and should he ever take his old place beside her again?

Once or twice more during the evening Cecil was almost insolent to him,
but still his resolution was strong.

"If he is a fool, why should I be a fool? I will wait and see if he can
win her. If he does, why, there is India for me. If he does not, I will
try again. Only I will not quarrel with Cecil, because he is blinded.
Little Cecil, who used to bathe with me, and ride pickaback round the
garden! No; he shall have fair play. By Jove, he shall have fair play,
if I die for it."

And he had some little comfort in the evening. When they had all risen
to go to bed, and were standing about in confusion lighting candles, he
suddenly found Alice by his side, who said in a s