Paula had left for bed at ten o'clock. Not till one did the bridge break up. Dick, his arm about Ernestine in brotherly fashion, said good night to Graham where one of the divided ways led to the watch tower, and continued on with his pretty sister-in-law toward her quarters.
"Just a tip, Ernestine," he said at parting, his gray eyes frankly and genially on hers, but his voice sufficiently serious to warn her.
"What have I been doing now?" she pouted laughingly.
"Nothing... as yet. But don't get started, or you'll be laying up a sore heart for yourself. You're only a kid yet--eighteen; and a darned nice, likable kid at that. Enough to make 'most any man sit up and take notice. But Evan Graham is not 'most any man--"
"Oh, I can take care of myself," she blurted out in a fling of quick resentment.
"But listen to me just the same. There comes a time in the affairs of a girl when the love-bee gets a buzzing with a very loud hum in her pretty noddle. Then is the time she mustn't make a mistake and start in loving the wrong man. You haven't fallen in love with Evan Graham yet, and all you have to do is just not to fall in love with him. He's not for you, nor for any young thing. He's an oldster, an ancient, and possibly has forgotten more about love, romantic love, and young things, than you'll ever learn in a dozen lives. If he ever marries again--"
"Again!" Ernestine broke in.
"Why, he's been a widower, my dear, for over fifteen years."
"Then what of it?" she demanded defiantly.
"Just this," Dick continued quietly. "He's lived the young-thing romance, and lived it wonderfully; and, from the fact that in fifteen years he has not married again, means--"
"That he's never recovered from his loss?" Ernestine interpolated. "But that's no proof--"
"--Means that he's got over his apprenticeship to wild young romance," Dick held on steadily. "All you have to do is look at him and realize that he has not lacked opportunities, and that, on occasion, some very fine women, real wise women, mature women, have given him foot-races that tested his wind and endurance. But so far they've not succeeded in catching him. And as for young things, you know how filled the world is with them for a man like him. Think it over, and just keep your heart-thoughts away from him. If you don't let your heart start to warm toward him, it will save your heart from a grievous chill later on."