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.

“You certainly used to be decided enough sometimes, when I wanted you to pull an oar.”

“And you so good-naturedly let me off,” was the reply, with a slight laugh.

“I didn’t let you off good-naturedly, nor do I intend to now.  Good heavens, Merwyn! don’t you read the papers?  There’s a chance now to take an oar to some purpose.  You were brave enough as a boy.”

Merwyn’s eyes came down from the curling smoke to Strahan’s face with a flash, and he rose and paced the room for a moment, then said, in his old quiet tones, “They say the child is father of the man.”

“Oh well, Merwyn,” was the slightly irritable rejoinder, “I have and ever had, you remember, a way of expressing my thoughts.  If, while abroad, you have become intolerant of that trait, why, the sooner we understand each other the better.  I don’t profess to be anything more than an American, and I called to-day with no other motive than the obvious and natural one.”

A shade of annoyance passed over Merwyn’s face, but as Strahan ceased he came forward and held out his hand, saying:  “I like you all the better for speaking your thoughts,—­for doing just as you please.  You must be equally fair and yield to me the privilege of keeping my thoughts, and doing as I please.”