But already the father's attention was diverted. His eyes were following Stanley Foster, who, dancing lightly down the steps, waved his hand with exuberant cordiality to the pair as he crossed the road and struck out over the parade. "When that fellow begins putting his hand on my shoulder or patting my back or calling me old chap I know he's playing to 'do' me some way," once said a brother officer of Foster's, and Sandy Ray was thinking of it when three minutes later Foster came bounding breezily in, confidence, cordiality, and jovial good-fellowship beaming from his well-groomed visage: "Sandy, old boy, lend me a horse this afternoon, will you?" Ray was alone at his desk. The bare little army office, with its few maps and ornamental calendars adorning the unpapered walls, its barrack-built table and chairs, its stacks of letter-files, boxes and tins of samples, was an uninviting place at best, yet had never hitherto appeared inhospitable. Even under the management of the still half-crippled cavalryman, himself an abstainer from the cup that sometimes cheers, and a partaker of a cup that always saddens, there had ever been frank and cordial greeting for visiting comrades, followed usually by invitation to taste the good cheer of the Canteen and suggest, if possible, additional improvement. But it was a lack-luster eye that turned on the entering officer this day. Sergeant Bates had but just left the room after having, in answer to question, briefly stated that no one but Captain Foster had visited the lieutenant's office during church time Sunday. The captain had merely tasted the beer, glanced about him, and then departed. No, not the way he came, the parade side. The captain had looked into the reading-room and through the billiard-room, which latter was closed on account of the day, and had strolled out through the rear doorway, a short cut to the east gate. That, then, seemed to complete the chain of evidence described by the colonel, and the heart of Sandy Ray was seething when Foster bustled in, while his voice, when presently there came reply, was as icily cold. All the same he turned in his revolving chair and looked his visitor straight in the eye, as he arose. "What do you want him for?" Foster flushed. He read unerringly the intense dislike in the young officer's gaze, but he dissembled: "To ride, 'bout four o'clock," was the matter-of-course reply. "Major Dwight said both his horses were at your disposal. He's only had one out to-day. Is Mrs. Dwight going to ride the other?" Foster's eyelids shut to a narrow slit. His mustache began to bristle at the ends. Now the red was flitting and his face was turning sallow. "While I consider that none of your business, Mr. Ray--yes!" "Then," said Sandy, his cheek white, his lips set, his eyes aflame, "you can't have mine."