Kenton," she said. "Some one
said that you had gone into the smoking-room and that you were talking
war with middle-aged generals and colonels."

"But I escaped as soon as I could, Miss Rosamond," he said--he was
thinking of the locked door and the universal search.

"Well, you came just in time. The band is beginning and I was about to
give your dance to that good-looking Lieutenant Dalton."

"You wouldn't treat me like that! Throw over your cousin in such a
manner! I can't think it!"

"No, I wouldn't!"

Then the full swell of the music caught them both, and they glided away,
as light and swift as the melody that bore them on.

CHAPTER XI

A VAIN PURSUIT

Youth was strong in Harry, and, while he danced and the music played,
he forgot all about the incident in the smoking-room. With him it was
just one pretty girl after another. He had heart enough for them all,
and only one who was so young and who had been so long on battlefields
could well understand what a keen, even poignant, pleasure it was to be
with them.

Those were the days when a ball lasted long. Pleasures did not come
often, but when they came they were to be enjoyed to the full. But as
the morning hours grew the manner of the older people became slightly
feverish and unnatural. They were pursuing pleasure and forgetfulness
with so much zeal and energy that it bore the aspect of force rather than
spontaneity. Harry noticed it and divined the cause. Beneath his high
spirits he now felt it himself. It was that looming shadow in the North
and that other in that far Southwest hovering over lost Vicksburg.
Serious men and serious women could not keep these shadows from their
eyes long.

The incident of the smoking-room and the missing map came back to him
with renewed force. It could not have walked away. They had searched
the room and the court so thoroughly that they would have found it,
had it been there. The disappearance of a document, which men of
authority and knowledge had built up almost unconsciously, puzzled and
alarmed him.

It was almost day when he and Dalton left. They paid their respects
to Mr. and Mrs. Curtis, and said many good-bys to "the girls they left
behind them." Then they went out into the street, and inhaled great
draughts of the cool night air.

"A splendid night," said Dalton.

"Yes, truly," said Harry.

"I hope you didn't propose to more than six girls."

"To none. But I love them all to