“Having escaped that,” she reflected, “there’s nothing else I greatly fear,” and she went down to breakfast resolving that she would be so faithful in her duties as a nurse that no one in authority would listen to her cousin or Perkins if they sought to make known their surmises.

Ignorant of her son’s action and its results, Mrs. Whately met her niece kindly and insisted that she should not leave the dining-room until she had partaken of the breakfast now almost ready.  Captain Maynard joined her with many expressions of a solicitude which the girl felt to be very uncalled for, yet in her instinct to propitiate every one in case her action should be questioned, she was more friendly to him than at any time before.  Meanwhile, she was asking herself, “What would they do to me if all was found out?” and sustaining herself by the thought, “Whatever they do to me, they can’t reach Lieutenant Scoville.”

It was gall and bitterness to Whately to find her talking affably to Maynard, but before the meal was over she had the address to disarm him in some degree.  For his own sake as well as hers and the family’s she thought, “I must not irritate him into hasty action.  If he should find out, and reveal everything, no matter what happened to me, he would bring everlasting disgrace on himself and relatives.  I could at least show that my motives were good, no matter how soldiers, with their harsh laws, might act toward me; but what motive could excuse him for placing me, a young girl and his cousin, in such a position?”

Whately had already satisfied himself that no pretence of zeal for the service could conceal his real motive or save him from general scorn should he speak of the mere conjectures of a man like Perkins.  He had never meant to speak of them publicly, simply to use his knowledge as a means of influencing his cousin.  He now doubted the wisdom of this.  Reacting from one mood to another, as usual, his chief hope now was that some unexpected turn of fortune’s wheel would bring his opportunity.  The one thing which all the past unfitted him to accept was personal and final denial.  His egotism and impatience at being crossed began to manifest itself in another direction, one suggested by Maynard’s evident susceptibility to his cousin’s attractions.  “Here is a chance,” he thought, “of righting myself in Lou’s eyes.  If this fellow, thrown into her society by the fortune of war, not by courtesy, presumptuously goes beyond a certain point in his attentions, Cousin Lou will find that no knight of olden time would have fought for her quicker than I will.  Mother says she is one who must have her romance.  She may have it with a vengeance.  It may open her eyes to the truth that a spirit like mine brooks no opposition, and when she sees that I am ready to face death for her she will admire, respect, and yield to a nature that is haughty and like that of the old nobility.”