“It seems to have been,” Tracy answered, and the music striking up, he asked her for the dance. They whirled away together, not speaking for some moments, and then Val broke in upon her anxious thoughts with a question. “Suppose, Miss Drummond,” he said, “that a chap found himself growing fond of a certain girl and discovered suddenly that his rival was on the scene, though he nor any one else had had any notion of it. What should he do about it?” For a moment Dorothea was puzzled. She thought, when he began to speak, that he was making a reference to Stanchfield, but this talk of a rival and a love affair made that impossible. Evidently Tracy was in love with April and had discovered that Hendon was near. He suspected, as she did, that April knew this, and was asking her what he should do. “How can I answer that, Mr. Tracy?” she replied. “Perhaps there isn’t a rival after all. Perhaps it’s only gossip. At any rate that chap you just spoke of needn’t give up—” “Don’t you think he need?” he interrupted eagerly. “He might do a good deal if he thought there was a chance for him.” “He might do anything that was honorable,” she answered. “And, faith, how can we measure honor?” Val cut in with a touch of bitterness in his voice. “That chap, you know, might have two honors to satisfy. One for the girl he loved and one for the country he served.” Again Dorothea wondered if it was Stanchfield he had in mind, but dismissed this thought at once. There could be no question of rivalry, as far as the young man upstairs was concerned. He knew no one in the house except Miss Imogene and herself. Before she had decided how to answer the dance ended and supper was announced. “What can I get for you?” Tracy asked, as she seated herself in the hall. “Nothing, thank you,” she answered. “Oh, but you must have something,” he insisted. Dorothea shook her head. “I feel as if refreshments would choke me when I think of the poor prisoners at Andersonville,” she replied. “I haven’t any appetite for such luxuries.” Tracy shrugged his broad shoulders and then sat down beside her. “Don’t you think you exaggerate a bit, Miss Drummond?” he began. “These luxuries, as you call them, are not so rich as they sound. The cake is made of bolted corn meal and sorghum. The sherbet is sweetened with honey, the coffee is made from thin slices of potato browned in the oven and ground up. That doesn’t sound very expensive, does it? And yet that is the best we can do in the way of luxuries. Indeed some of our parties are ‘starvation parties,’ with no refreshments at all.” “But every one is so gay and seems so happy and regardless of all this misery going on near them.” Dorothea was not quite herself, and Tracy looked at her questioningly before he answered.