do you think either of the girls would go back on you, just because
a lot of raw, half-baked cadets have got you sized up wrong?
Is that all the faith you have in your friends? And, especially,
such a friend as Laura Bentley? Was that the way she acted when
you were under charges of cribbing? You were in disgrace, then,
weren't you? Did Laura look at you with anything but sympathy
in her eyes?"

"No; heaven bless her!"

"Now, see here, Dick. If the girls are up here this evening,
we won't take 'em to the hop. Instead, we'll sit out on the north
porch at the hotel, with Mrs. Bentley near by. We'll have such
a good old talk with the girls as we never could have at a hop."

"Everything in life would be easy, Greg, if you could explain it
away," laughed Dick Prescott, but his tone was bitter.

"Well, as you can't take the girls to the hop, with any regard
for their comfort, my plan is best of all, isn't it?"

"I---I suppose so."

"So make the best of it, old ramrod. There's nothing so bad that
it couldn't be a lot worse."

There was a long tour of work with the field battery guns that
afternoon. For once Prescott found his mind entirely off his
work. Nor could he rally his senses to his work. He got a low
marking, indeed, in the instructor's record for that afternoon's