"If you'll write the first," agreed Vivien, brightening up.
"Of course your 'Jack' will write first to his little 'Forget-me-not'!" laughed Patsie.
Patsie was gifted with a most lively imagination, and some talent for writing. Her tastes ran on the lines of cheap novelettes. She evolved a supposititious hero for Vivien, and began a series of epistles couched in exceedingly ardent terms. All the most extravagant nonsense that she could invent was scribbled in the letters, which, addressed simply to "Forget-me-not", were posted inside the hollow of an old ash-tree at the bottom of the school garden. Vivien shared the effusions with her friends, and they had tremendous fun over them in a corner of the cloak-room. They helped her to concoct replies. The imaginary romance afforded them extreme entertainment. It was as exciting as writing a novel. They worked it through all sorts of interesting stages—hope, despair, and lovers' quarrels—till it culminated in a suggested elopement. Patsie really outdid herself sometimes in the brilliancy of her composition. "Jack" had developed a floweriness of style and a knack of describing his bold adventures that raised him to the rank of a cinema hero. The girls used to wait for his letters with as keen an anticipation as for the next number of a serial. Vivien, the fortunate recipient of them, was envied. Several other enthusiasts suggested opening a correspondence, but Patsie was adamant.
"The Sensation Bureau's got enough in this line on its hands. I'll provide something else for you, if you like—a shipwreck, or an air-raid, or a railway accident—but until those two are safely 'eloped', I can't take on any more love affairs. Oh, yes! you can put down your names if you like. I've a nice little matter in my mind for Audrey, later in the term—no, I shan't tell it you now, not if you beg all day!"
The girls were sitting near the stove in the gymnasium before afternoon school, and munching some home-made chocolate concocted with cocoa and condensed milk. Like most war substitutes, it was not so good as the real thing, but it was certainly much better than nothing. The talk, with several side-issues concerning eatables, drifted back again to the all-engrossing "Jack". Vivien, as the heroine of the romance, assumed an attitude of interesting importance. She affected much knowledge of his doings.
"You've never yet told us exactly what he's like," said Nellie.
"Well, of course it's difficult to describe him. He's tall, you know, with flashing eyes and little crisp curls."
"Has he a moustache?"
"N—n—o, not exactly a moustache." (Vivien's imagination was not nearly so ready as Patsie's.) "He's rather like Antonio in that piece they had at the cinema last week. He flings money about liberally, and he's always jumping into a motor and driving off very fast."
"Where does he get his petrol?" asked Lorraine.