hope
you're pleased."

"Can you doubt it?" asked Dick so absently, so reluctantly, that
Laura Bentley shot a swift, uneasy look at the handsome young
cadet captain.

"You don't seem over delighted," broke in Belle Meade. "Gracious!
I hope we haven't been indiscreet in coming almost unannounced?
See here, you haven't invited any other girls to to-night's hop,
have you?"

Both girls, flushed and rather uneasy looking, were now eyeing
the two ill-at-ease young first classmen.

"No; we haven't invited anyone else. But there's something to
be explained," replied Dick lamely. "Greg, you explain, won't
you? And you'll all excuse me, won't you, while I hurry away
to tog for dress parade?"

Laura's face was almost as white as Dick's had been at noon, as
she gazed after the receding Prescott.

Then Greg, in his bluntest way, tried to put it all straight,
and quickly, at that.

"Oh, is that all?" asked Belle with a sniff of contempt. "Why
couldn't Dick remain and tell us himself? You cadets are certainly
cowards in some things---sometimes!"

But the tears were struggling for a front place in Laura's fine
eyes.

"Is this 'silence' going to affect Dick very much in his career
in the Army?" she asked with emotion.

"Not if his staunchest friends can prevent it," replied Greg almost
fiercely. "And old ramrod has a host of friends in his class,
at that."

"It's too bad they're not in the majority, then," murmured Miss
Meade.

"They will be, in the end," asserted Greg. "We're working things
around to that point. You should have heard the fierce row we put
up at the class meeting last night."

When it was too late Greg could have bitten his tongue.

"Class meeting?" asked Laura. "Then has there been further action
taken?"

Greg nodded, biting his lips.

"What was last night's meeting held for?" persisted Laura.

"To try to oust Dick from the class presidency," confessed Cadet
Holmes.

"Did they do it?" quivered Laura Bentley.

"No!"

"Ah! Then the attempt was defeated. Dick is to retain the presidency
of his class?"

"Action was deferred," replied Greg in a low voice.

He wished with all his heart he could get away, for he saw that,
no matter how he tried to hedge the facts about, these keen-witted
girls realized that Dick Prescott's plight was about as black
as it could be for a young man who wanted, with all his soul,
to remain in the military service of his country.

CHAPTER VII