_ CHAPTER VIII. ENTER SERGEANT MULLINS
"Mollie, you've been crying."
"I have not!" snapped Mollie, turning so the light would not fall on her face.
"Well, what are your eyes and nose all red for then?" asked Amy reasonably.
"Ask them," retorted Mollie. "Probably just did it to make me mad."
Several days had gone by, and the entertainment into which the girls had thrown themselves with so much enthusiasm had been given and pronounced a great success by the soldiers stationed at Camp Liberty. Since then the days had been given largely to the routine work of the Hostess House--afternoon teas, evening coffee served to those who wished it, writing letters for the boys, entertaining others, looking after wives and mothers and sisters who were visiting near the camp, suggesting books for some who seemed to be of uncertain taste. Now, on this day, something unusual had plainly happened.
"Oh, girls, I've got a wonderful plan--something new for the soldier boys!" cried Betty, breaking in upon her two friends merrily. Then, seeing that she had interrupted something, paused and looked uncertainly from Amy to Mollie and back again.
"Why, Mollie," she cried anxiously, "what is the matter?"
"Oh, can't you find something original to say?" snapped Mollie irascibly. "Seems to me that's all I hear from morning to night. 'Oh, Mollie, what's the matter--what's the matter, Mollie?' till I could scream."
"Oh, please excuse me," said Betty, with a little freezing quality in her voice. "I thought I might help; but if that's the way you feel about it--"
Quick as a flash Mollie had run to her and, repentant, thrown her arms about the Little Captain's neck.
"Please forgive me, Betty," she cried. "I'm perfectly horrid, and I know I don't deserve a friend like you. But--well, I'm just a beast, that's all," she finished lamely.
Betty laughed and patted her shoulder comfortingly.
"I guess we all are once in a while," she said, adding with a return of her old cheeriness, "Now, prove your repentance by 'fessing up. It's sure to make you feel better."
"Well, it wasn't anything much," Mollie replied, her face clouding again. "Only--I had a quarrel with--with--somebody--"
"How very explicit," drawled Grace, who had entered the room in time to hear the last part of the sentence.
Mollie stiffened, and Betty sent Grace a warning glance.
"Go on, Mollie dear, I'm awfully interested," Betty hurriedly interposed. "Because, you see," she added ruefully, "I just had a quarrel myself."
"You did," cried the three at once, and crowded around her eagerly.
"Oh, Betty, who with?" asked Amy, too excited to bother about grammar. Betty quarreled so seldom with anybody that when she did the girls considered it an event.
"I'll tell you about it after Mollie has 'fessed up," evaded Betty, seeming a trifle sorry for her confidence.
"Oh, did Mollie have one, too?" cried Grace delightedly, while Mollie sent her a hostile glance.
"Well, you needn't be so glad about it," she retorted glumly. "Maybe it wouldn't seem quite so interesting if it were you and Roy."
"Well, how do you know it wasn't?"
The three girls stared.
"What was that you said?" demanded Betty weakly. "I don't think I quite--"
"I said," returned Grace calmly, and pronouncing each word with exaggerated distinctness, "that Roy and I have had a quarrel, which probably would make yours look like nothing at all."
"Grace!" they cried in chorus, "do you mean it?"
For answer Grace turned to the mirror and began to arrange her hair.
"Ask Roy," she flung at them over her shoulder.
Behind her the girls looked at each other dumbly, struggling with a wild desire to laugh and cry at the same instant.
"But how?" Amy was beginning dazedly when once more Betty came to the rescue.
"All this would be funny if it weren't so impossible," she said. "Suppose we begin at the beginning and tell our experiences, since we're all in the same boat. It ought to be interesting--if not instructive."
Grace turned from the mirror and seated herself expectantly on the arm of a chair.
"Well, who's first?" she demanded.
"I am," volunteered Mollie unexpectedly, her eyes glittering. "It was all so utterly absurd, and it made me so m-mad that I had to c-cry--"
"So we see," murmured Grace impatiently, but once more Betty sent her a warning glance.
"And then--" she suggested.
"Well, Frank and I were taking a little walk when all of a sudden I happened to think of the bayonet drill Sergeant Mullins had invited us to."
Betty and Grace started and leaned forward eagerly in their chairs.
"Yes?" they breathed.
"Well," continued Mollie, her color rising, "I don't know whatever got into Frank--he never used to be like that. He just sort of froze up and wouldn't answer my questions or anything until I got so angry I told him that if he didn't tell me what the matter was I'd say good-by to him right there and wouldn't ever speak to him again."
"Yes?" breathed the girls again.
"Then what did he say?" asked Grace.
"Why, he just got red in the face," replied Mollie, "and said all right then, he'd tell me what the matter was. And then he said"--she laughed a little hysterically--"that he just couldn't stand the thought of my seeing so much of Sergeant Mullins--think of it--me, who have never said two words alone to the man in my life!"
"Well, I never!" Betty exploded, while the usually placid Grace seemed hardly able to keep her seat. "That's almost exactly what Allen said!"
"And Roy, too!" cried Grace dazedly. "Girls, what does it mean?"
"It seems to mean," put in Amy dryly, "that one or all of us are ready for the insane asylum."
"Allen said," Betty contributed, wide-eyed, "that it made him mad to see the way that Sergeant Mullins hung around the Hostess House all the time. He made it quite plain that there was no doubt but what I was the main attraction."
"And Roy thinks it's me," said Grace, her own grammar suffering from excitement. "Goodness! does he think the poor boy is after all of us?"
"Thinks he's going to start a harem, maybe," cried Mollie hysterically. "Oh, dear, isn't it too ridiculous?"
"I suppose," said Amy thoughtfully, "it's because Sergeant Mullins is so awfully good-looking."
"And, of course, he does come around a good deal," added Mollie.
"I know. But that's because he's so lonesome," put in Betty. "And, of course, we have all tried to be nice to him. I think it's horrid," she added, flaring up, "for the boys to act so ridiculously just because he happens to be good-looking and awfully attractive!"
"Oh, Betty, Betty," chided Mollie, wiping a tear--this time of merriment--from her eyes. "If Allen could only hear you now!"
"Nonsense!" retorted Betty, almost snappishly. "There are dozens of boys who come here to tell us their troubles, and I don't see why they have to--"
"Pick on him," finished Grace. "Only you must remember," she added with a twinkle, "that he is much more attractive than most--"
"And he never tells us any troubles either," added Mollie, with a chuckle. "Maybe the boys think that's suspicious."
"Well," said Amy, with a sigh, "I seem to be the only one left out. Nobody thinks it's worth while to quarrel romantically about me."
The girls laughed, and Grace added with a grimace:
"Goodness, you needn't feel bad about it. It was just your luck that you didn't meet Will this morning and tell him the awful news, that's all. I suppose he'd have acted as silly as the rest of them."
"Maybe it's a plant anyway," suggested Mollie dolefully.
"A plant?" queried Betty. "What kind--a flower or a T.N.T. factory?"
"A plot was what I meant," explained Mollie patiently, while the others chuckled.
"A plot!" repeated Grace, with a return of her drawl. "Heavens, Mollie, if there is anything in signs you ought to be a great author some day from the way you're always seeing a plot in everything."
"Thank you, I hope so," said Mollie.
"Well, for goodness' sake get to the point," urged Grace impatiently, glancing at the clock. "We'll have to dress pretty soon, to go down to serve the regular afternoon tea to the soldier boys and their friends."
"Oh, it just occurred to me," Mollie explained, "that perhaps the boys had met some girls in town they liked better than they like us and had gotten up a conspiracy--to--to--quarrel with us--"
"What a brilliant idea!" scoffed Grace. "Especially as the boys have been following us around like Mary's little lamb, and have scared all the other boys away."
"And without being conceited at all," added Amy, with a chuckle, "the girls I've seen around the town really aren't calculated to steal their hearts away."
"In that case, haven't we still got Sergeant Mullins?" chuckled Betty.
They laughed, and Mollie added, as they started to dress for the afternoon:
"I wonder if the boys really expected that we wouldn't go to this special bayonet drill to-morrow--especially when we've been longing to see one for ages--just because Sergeant Mullins invited us?"
"I'm sure I don't know," said Betty carelessly. "But it really doesn't matter since we're going anyway!" _