might be dazzled and interested, perhaps to her sorrow.

Merwyn had developed into a broad-shouldered man, nearly six feet
in height. His quiet, courteous elegance did not disguise from one
who had known him so well in boyhood an imperious, self-pleasing
nature, and a tenacity of purpose in carrying out his own desires.
He accepted of his quondam friend's uniform without remark. That
was Strahan's affair and not his, and by a polite reserve, he made
the mercurial fellow feel that his affairs were his own. Strahan
chafed under this polished reticence, this absence of all curiosity.

"Blast him!" thought the young officer, "he acts like a superior
being, who has deigned to visit America to look after his rents,
and intimates that the country has no further concern with him or
he with it. Jove! I'd give all the pay I ever expect to get to see
him a rejected suitor of my plucky little American girl;" and he
regarded his host with an ill-disposed eye. At last he resolved to
take the initiative boldly.

"How long do you expect to remain here, Merwyn?"

"I scarcely know. It depends somewhat on my mother's plans."

"Thunder! It's time you had plans of your own, especially when a
man has your length of limb and breadth of chest."

"I have not denied the possession of plans," Merwyn quietly remarked,
his dark eye following the curling, upward flight of smoke from
his cigar.