ractical 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. Gradually, however, she found herself
less certain of winning whom she would. The competition of young girls
some two or three years her junior became threatening. She was obliged
to give up cadet officers for privates, and then first-class privates
for third-class privates, as the hotel waiter had explained to Sam. At
the time of Sam's arrival at the Point she was having more difficulty
than ever before, and she became thoroughly frightened. She took up
with Saunders because he alone came her way, but the engagement was a
poor makeshift, and she could not get up any enthusiasm over it. She
could hardly pretend to be in love with him, and she felt conscious
that she had a foolish prejudice in favor of straight noses. What was
she to do? If she was to marry at all in the army--and how could she
marry anywhere else?--she must soon make up her mind. Her experience
now stood her in good stead. Had she not seen these very first-class
cadet officers only three years before as mere despised "beasts," doing
all kinds of drudgery for their oppressors? Had she not seen her
_fiance_, Saunders, himself, a short twelvemonth ago, with nose intact,
slinking like a pariah about the post? She had learned the l