That was Loring's last affair of the kind. He went
about his duties next day as seriously and methodically as ever, without
the faintest show of triumph, and when the vanquished cadet finally
returned from hospital, treated him with scrupulous courtesy that,
before the winter wore away, warmed even to kindliness, and when the
springtime came the two were cordial friends. The summer of his
graduation Loring was ordered on temporary duty as an instructor during
the encampment of cadets. He did not dance. He cared little for society,
but one evening at Cozzens' he was thrilled by the sweetness of a
woman's song, and gazing in at her as she sang to an applauding audience
in the great parlor, Loring saw a face as sweet as the voice. Several
evenings he spent on the broad veranda, for every night she sang and ere
long noticed him; so did prominent society women and read his unspoken
admiration. "Let me present you to her, Mr. Loring," said one of the
latter. "She is a lovely girl, and so lonely, you know. She is engaged
as companion, it seems, to Miss Haight--a dragon of an old maid who is a
good deal of an invalid and seldom out of her room. That is why you
never see the girl at the 'hops' at the Point, yet I know she'd love to
go."

Loring felt that he blushed with eagerness and pleasure, though he
merely said "please," and so Miss Geraldine Allyn met Lieutenant Loring
of the engineers, and within the fortnight he knew, though he strove to
hide it, that he was madly in love with her. Such beauty, such a voice,
such appealing loneliness were too much for him. Six long weeks, though
he became her shadow, Loring struggled against his passion. He had
planned that for years he should remain single until he had saved a
modest nestegg; then, when he had rank and experience, had moved in the
world and had ample opportunity to study women, he would select for
himself and deliberately lay siege to the girl he thought to make his
wife.

But when his duties were completed with the twenty-eighth of August and
he should have gone to his home, Loring remained at the Point
fascinated, for Miss Haight and her musical companion stayed at Cozzens
through September. In October they were to go to Lenox, and before the
parting Loring's ring was on that little finger. She had promised to be
his wife. Home then he hurried in response to the pleading of his
sister, but the moment the Lenox visit was over and Miss Haight
returned to New York thit