Dave Darrin's Second Year at Annapolis Part 23

"Gold brick," supplied Belle, resignedly.

"No--not for worlds! You're no gold brick, Belle, and you know it, even though you do refuse to go to the mirror. But the fellow who drags any femme--"

"Please--?"

"'Femme' stands for girl. The fellow who drags any femme makes up her dance card for her."

"And she hasn't a word to say about it?"

"Not as a rule."

"Oh!" cried Belle, dramatically.

She moved toward the door. Dave, who could not take his eyes from her pretty face, managed, somehow, to delay her.

"Belle, there's something--" he began.

"Good gracious! Where? What?" she cried, looking about her keenly.

"It's something I want to say--must say," Dave went on with more of an effort than anyone but himself could guess.

"Tell me, as we're going down the street," invited Belle.

"_Wha-a-at?_" choked Dave. "Well, I guess not!"

He faced her, resting both hands lightly on her shoulders.

"Belle, we were pretty near sweethearts in the High School, I think," he went on, huskily, but looking her straight in the eyes. "At least, that was my hope, and I hope, most earnestly, that it's going to continue.

Belle, I am a long way from my real career, yet. It will be five years, yet, before I have any right to marry. But I want to look forward, all the time, to the sweet belief that my schoolgirl sweetheart is going to become my wife one of these days. I want that as a goal to work for, along with my commission in the Navy. But to this much I agree: if you say 'yes' now, and find later that you have made a mistake, you will tell me so frankly."

"Poor boy!" murmured Belle, looking at him fully. "You've been a plebe until lately, and you haven't been allowed to see any girls. I'm not going to take advantage of you as heartlessly as that."

Yet something in her eyes gave the mids.h.i.+pman hope.

"Belle," he continued eagerly, "don't trifle with me. Tell me--will you marry me some day?"

Then there was a little more talk and--well, it's no one's business.

"But we're not so formally engaged," Belle warned him, "that you can't write me and draw out of the snare if you wish when you're older. And I'm not going to wear any ring until you've graduated from the Naval Academy. Do you understand that, Mr. David Darrin?"

"It shall be as you say, either way," Dave replied happily.

"And now, let us get started, or we shan't get out on the street to-day," urged Belle.

Then they pa.s.sed out on the street, and no ordinarily observant person would have suspected them of being anything more than school friends.

Being very matter-of-fact in some respects, Belle's first move was to go to a stationer's, where she bought a little notebook bound in red leather.

Dave tried to pay for that purchase, but Belle forestalled him.

"Why didn't you allow me to make you that little gift?" he asked in a low tone, when they had reached the street.

"Wait," replied Belle archly. "Some day you may find your hands full in that line."

"One of my instructors at Annapolis complimented me on having very capable hands," Dave told her dryly.

"The instructor in boxing?" asked Belle.

It was a wonderfully delightful stroll that the middy and his sweetheart enjoyed that September forenoon.

Once Dave sighed, so p.r.o.nouncedly that Belle shot a quick look of questioning at him.

"Tired of our understanding already?" she demanded.

"No; I was thinking how sorry I am for Danny boy! He doesn't know the happiness of having a real sweetheart."

"How do you know he doesn't?" asked Belle quickly. "Does he tell you everything?"

"No; but I know Danny's sea-going lines pretty well. I'd suspect, at least, if he had a sweetheart."

"Are you sure that you would?"

"Oh, yes! By gracious! There's Danny going around the corner above at this very moment."

Belle had looked in the same instant.

"Yes; and a skirt swished around the corner with him," declared Belle impressively. "It would be funny, wouldn't it, if you didn't happen to know all about Dan Dalzell?"

In the early afternoon, however, the mystery was cleared up.

On the street Dalzell had encountered Laura Bentley. Both were full of talk and questions concerning d.i.c.k Prescott and Greg Holmes, at West Point, for which reason Dan had strolled home with Miss Bentley without any other thought, on the mids.h.i.+pman's part, than playing subst.i.tute gallant for his chum, Cadet Richard Prescott, U.S. Military Academy.

A most delightful afternoon the four young people spent together at the Bentley home.

These were the forerunners of other afternoons.

Belle and Laura, however, were not able to keep their mids.h.i.+pmen to themselves.

Other girls, former students at the High School, arranged a series of affairs to which the four young people were invited.

Dave's happiest moments were when he had Belle to himself, for a stroll or chat.

Dan's happiest moments, on the other hand, were when he was engaged in hunting the old High School fellows, or such of them as were now at home. For many of them had entered colleges or technical schools. Tom Reade and Harry Hazelton, of the famous old d.i.c.k & Co., of High School days, were now in the far southwest, under circ.u.mstances fully narrated in "THE YOUNG ENGINEERS IN ARIZONA," the second volume of "THE YOUNG ENGINEERS' SERIES.'"

Day by day Belle jotted down in her notebook more specimens of mids.h.i.+pman slang.

"I shall soon feel that I can reel off the language like a native of Crabtown," she confided laughingly to Dare.

"It won't be very long before you have an opportunity to try," Dave declared, "if you and Laura embrace your first opportunity to come to a middy hop."