If you are interested in knowing,
I had a fearful time in keeping up with the requirements."
"Oh, you poor boy!" cried Miss Atterly half tenderly.
"I never felt that I wanted any sympathy," Dan declared stoutly.
"If I couldn't keep up, then the only thing to do was to go back
to civil life and find my own level among my own kind."
"Now, that was truly brave in you!" declared Miss Atterly, admiration
shining in her eyes.
"There's the music starting," Dan hastily reminded her. "Our
dance."
"Would it seem disagreeable in me if I asked you to sit out this
number with me?" inquired the girl. "The truth is, I can dance
any evening, but you and your brave fight here, Mr. Dalzell, interest
me---oh, more than I can tell you!"
Under this line of conversation Midshipman Dalzell soon began
to feel highly uncomfortable. Miss Atterly, however, in getting
Dan to talk of the midshipman and the Naval life, soon had him
feeling at his ease. Nor could Dalzell escape noticing the fact
that Miss Atterly appeared to enjoy his company hugely.
Then Dan was led on into talking of the life of the Naval officer
at sea, and he spoke eloquently.
"A life of bravery and daring," commented Miss Atterly thoughtfully.
"Yet, after all, I would call it rather a lonely life."
"Perhaps it will prove so," Dalzell assented. "Yet it is all the
life that I look forward to. It's all the life that I care about."
"Despite the loneliness---or rather, because of it---it will seem
all the finer and more beautiful to come home to wife and children,"
said Miss Atterly after a pause.
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