forestalled me.

"Really, we must go, Miss Rowan, or we shall be late for luncheon," he
drawled. The insolent tone of him was like having one's face slapped,
and it didn't pass over Lyn's head by any means. I thought to myself
that if he had set out to entrench himself in her good graces, he was
taking the poorest of all methods to accomplish that desirable end.

"Just a moment, major," she said. "Are you going to be here any length
of time, Sarge?"

"A day or so," I responded shortly. I didn't feel overly cheerful
with all that bad news simmering in my brain-pan, and in addition
I had conceived a full-grown dislike for the "major" and his
I-am-superior-to-you attitude.

"Then come and see me this afternoon if you can. I'm staying with Mrs.
Stone. Don't forget, now--I have a thousand things I want to talk about.
Good-bye." And she smiled and turned away with the uniformed snob by her
side.

MacRae had loitered purposely, and I overtook him in a few rods.

"Well," I blurted out, as near angry as I ever got at MacRae in all the
years I'd known him, "you're a high-headed cuss, confound you! Is it a
part of your new philosophy of life to turn your back on every one that
you ever cared anything for?"

He shrugged his shoulders tolerantly. "What did you expect of me?"