FROM that time forward the Admiral was a caller at the Highwoods, for he could not his natural composure until he had seen and questioned Phil. The first evening he called Phil had gone out to dinner with some old classmates, and as the Admiral said nothing of the purpose of his visit there was nothing to prevent Phil from remaining late at his office the next night.  
All the while, too, Jermyn, whom the Admiral met daily at breakfast, carried himself with an air of which was in the highest degree . Was it possible that the fellow had himself secured those in some way, and was having a time in torturing an old man who had been his best friend? It did not seem possible, so one morning the Admiral cautiously remarked:
 
"By the way, have you done anything about those sketches?"
 
"Not a thing."
 
"You don't know anything about them?"
 
"No more than when we first came North."
 
"When do you intend to find out?"
 
"Never, if there's no way but the one you have suggested."
 
"I don't wonder," said the Admiral icily, "that you're willing to lose your share of the money, for a man in love is generally fool enough to think that he, and particularly his wife, can live on air, but——"
 
"Admiral!"
 
"Oh, be angry, if you like, but I mean it. On the other hand, do you think it is conduct becoming an officer and gentleman to deprive me of a lot of money when I've several times put myself to great inconvenience, out of unselfish regard for you?"
 
"I'd do almost anything in the world to oblige you, Admiral," replied Jermyn, "but after what you've said regarding what you might do with your share of the money, you can't blame me for being reluctant."
 
"See here, dear boy," pleaded the Admiral, "I'll withdraw that threat if you'll get merely your own . I'll cheerfully lose my own share, if I may feel comfortable about your future."
 
That shot told. Jermyn could not endure the thought of any man playing for him, so he answered somewhat sulkily:
 
"I must do it."
 
"Good! When?"
 
"Very soon."
 
"Time is precious, dear boy." Then the Admiral told of his plan regarding Trixy's scrap-book, and his defeat, and finally asked:
 
"Don't you suppose you could make another sketch of the surroundings of that placer as you did at the fort?"
 
 
"Easily."
 
The Admiral hastily offered the back of a letter and a pencil, and followed with his eyes each mark that Jermyn made. When the sketch was almost complete, Jermyn stopped and asked:
 
"Why do you want this, Admiral?"
 
"For use as a , in case your original should be lost."
 
"Oh, that would be a !"
 
"Nonsense! Can a man forge his own signature? What would you say in answer to that question, if you were member of a court-martial?"
 
"I scarcely know," replied Jermyn slowly, "but—" here he paused long enough to tear the paper into strips, and tear the strips crosswise, "I must give my honor the benefit of the doubt."
 
"Oh, you idiot," exclaimed the old gentleman angrily. "You're worse than an idiot, for you're intimating that I, an officer and gentleman, am counselling a crime."
 
"Forgive me, Admiral. You know very well that I couldn't, for an instant, think such a thing. Still, any man must be ruled by his own conscience."
 
Jermyn went down to the Sandy Hook proving-grounds, and the Admiral spent a day, relieved somewhat by a call upon Kate, to whom he to tell the whole story, and to appeal to her, first for Jermyn's sake and then for his own, to help him to get those sketches. He knew women, he thought; Kate was a young woman of unusual balance of mind, so she probably had been sensible enough to wonder on what she and Jermyn would live after they married. [Pg 214]They would soon marry, the Admiral was sure; for love, like many other to which humanity is subject, acts most powerfully where longest delayed or avoided.
 
But, , for human courage! The veteran who had led boarding parties and storming parties, could not sufficient courage to tell a woman that another woman had been upon making a match for her, and that two men, one of whom was the young woman's own lover, had seen the plan in black and white, while Kate herself had no thought of ever becoming Mrs. Jermyn.
 
So he called again at the Highwoods, made a full to Trif and her husband, and begged for the sketches. Fortunately, the couple were alone, and Fenie having gone to a dinner which the Trewmans were giving to both happy couples. Phil seemed greatly amused by the story, and said:
 
"So that explains the mystery of those two pictures!" Then, for the first time, he told Trif of meeting Jermyn in Madison Square, and of Jermyn's strange on seeing one of the pictures, and how Phil himself had chanced to see the other, only two or three days before the Ad............