The officer hesitated, feeling more doubtful than ever regarding his own position. Chagrined, disarmed, he felt like a prisoner standing bound before his mocking captor. "Then I fear my mission here is useless." "Entirely so, if you come for the purpose I suspect," said Hampton, sitting erect in his chair, and speaking with more rapid utterance. "To lecture me on morality, and demand my yielding up all influence over this girl,--such a mission is assured of failure. I have listened with some degree of calmness in this room already to one such address, and surrendered to its reasoning. But permit me to say quite plainly, Lieutenant Brant, that you are not the person from whom I will quietly listen to another." "I had very little expectation that you would." "You should have had still less, and remained away entirely. However, now that you are here, and the subject broached, it becomes my turn to say something, and to say it clearly. It seems to me you would exhibit far better taste and discrimination if from now on you would cease forcing your attentions upon Miss Gillis." Brant leaped to his feet, but the other never deigned to alter his position. "Forcing my attentions!" exclaimed the officer. "God's mercy, man! do you realize what you are saying? I have forced no attentions upon Miss Gillis." "My reference was rather to future possibilities. Young blood is proverbially hot, and I thought it wise to warn you in time." Brant stared into that imperturbable face, and somehow the very sight of its calm, inflexible resolve served to clear his own brain. He felt that this cool, self-controlled man was speaking with authority. "Wait just a moment," he said, at last. "I wish this made perfectly clear, and for all time. I met Miss Gillis first through pure accident. She impressed me strongly then, and I confess I have since grown more deeply interested in her personality. I have reasons to suppose my presence not altogether distasteful to her, and she has certainly shown that she reposed confidence in me. Not until late last night did I even suspect she was the same girl whom we picked up with you out on the desert. It came to me from her own lips and was a total surprise. She revealed her identity in order to justify her proposed clandestine meeting with you." "And hence you requested this pleasant conference," broke in Hampton, coolly, "to inform me, from your calm eminence of respectability, that I was no fit companion for such a young and innocent person, and to warn me that you were prepared to act as her protector." Brant slightly inclined his head. "I may have had something of that nature in my mind."