His pulses were bounding.

What was to become, now, of his resolution to hold back the surging words for at least two more years?
Yet resolutely he stifled the feelings that surged within him.
He was a boy, though the training at West Point was swiftly making him over into a man.
"I may lose her," groaned Cadet Prescott.

"I may have lost her already---if I ever had any chance.

But a soldier has at least his honor to think of, and no honorable man can ask a woman to give herself to him, and to wait for years, when he isn't reasonably certain he is going to be able to meet the responsibility that he seeks." Never had Prescott been more earnest, more serious, nor more attentive than during the remainder of that drive.

Yet he studiously refrained from giving the girl any hint of the thoughts that were surging within him.
Was he foolish?
Dick felt, anyway, that he was not, for he was waging a mighty fight to stand by his best sense of honor..