"Yes; didn't you know Miss Preston was engaged to be married?" "I---I certainly did not," Dan stammered. "Why, she spoke to you much of 'Oscar'-----" "Her brother?" "No; the man who will be her husband on Monday," went on Mr. Preston blandly. Being quite near-sighted the elder man had not discovered Dan's sudden emotion. "That is what occupies us to-night. We leave on the first car for Baltimore in the morning. Mrs. Preston is now engaged over our trunks." "I---I am very certain, then, that I have come at an unseasonable time," Dan answered hastily. "I did not know---which fact, I trust, will constitute my best apology for having intruded at such a busy season, Mr. Preston." "There has been no intrusion, and therefore no apology is needed, sir," replied Mr. Preston courteously. Dan got out, somehow, without staggering, or without having his voice quiver. Once in the street he started along blindly, his fists clenched. "So that's the way she uses me, is it?" he demanded of himself savagely. "Plays with me, while all the time the day for her wedding draws near. She must be laughing heartily over---my greenness! Oh, confound all girls, anyway!" It was seldom that Midshipman Dalzell allowed himself to get in a temper. He had been through many a midshipman fight without having had his ugliness aroused. But just now Dan felt humiliated, sore in spirit and angry all over---especially with all members of the gentler sex. He even fancied that Mr. Preston was at that moment engaged in laughing over the verdant midshipman. As a matter of fact, Mr. Preston was doing nothing of the sort. Mr. Preston had not supposed that Dan's former call had been intended as anything more than a pleasant social diversion. The Prestons supposed that every one knew that their niece was betrothed to an excellent young fellow. So, at this particular moment, Mr. Preston was engaged in sitting on a trunk, while his wife tried to turn the key in the lock. Neither of them was favoring Midshipman Dalzell with as much as a thought. "Why on earth is it that all girls are so tricky?" Dan asked himself savagely, taking it for granted that all girls are "tricky" where admirers are concerned. "Oh, my, what a laugh Davy will have over me, when he hears!" was Dan's next bitter thought, as he strode along. Having just wronged all girls in his own estimation of them, Dan was now proceeding to do his own closest chum an injustice. For Dave Darrin was too thorough a gentleman to laugh over any unfortunate's discomfiture. "What a lucky escape I had from getting better acquainted with that girl!" was Dalzell's next thought. "Why, with one as wholly deceitful as she is there can be no telling where it would all have ended. She might have drawn me into troubles that would have resulted in my having to leave the service!"