"Hardly, since I know where it is. Lost things are said to keep cool company in the moon."
"What is keeping company with your ring?" said Miss Saucy. "Your heart, of course?"
"Of course."
"Will she be here for the hop?"
"Since when were hearts feminine? No, I do not think 'she' will," said Magnus. "Hearts are best at home, hop nights."
The talk went on, the crowd drifted; and little Miss Bee in her corner held her plate and ate her ice, and tasted nothing. Of course, she had seen that the ring was missing; but then no girl had boasted its possession. And men took whims.
What tales dark corners could tell; of hard-pressed fights, of struggles, of victory! The band played, the throng increased—then began to thin out. Presently Magnus came and took the plate from the weary fingers, asking if she would have anything more.
"No, nothing," she assured him with a smile. But something in the smile and its quiet patience, made him dart over to the table and fetch a handful of the gayest bonbons and mottoes, and bestow them in Miss Bee's own hands. A man's blunder, again! And yet perhaps not. Of course the sweets were not eaten; they were conveyed away and stored among Miss Bee's few chiefest treasures; but I think in time they became a comfort, too; shining tokens of what a friend she had had in one of the foremost men of the Corps. It could not be helped that this put other men at a discount.
For the ten days that followed no one saw much of Cadet Kindred, in any of those between-times that he could call his own. West Point outlines had cast their lovely spell about him; and with every chance he was down by the river, up among the rocks; climbing the leafy ways; saying good-bye, and then coming back to say it again.