“Fiddlesticks!”
“What are you here for?... What do you expect to do?”
“Talk, mostly,” she said, merrily. “I guess that’s what I’m wanted for more than anything else—to let the boys talk to me. Incidentally I’ll make hot chocolate and sell cigarettes and safety razors and jam and cookies.... I’ll just be here.”
“Just be here,” he repeated after her. “Just be here....” And in a flash as of lightning he saw what her just being here would mean to those men.... He saw what a lofty height they would set her upon, and how they would worship her beauty, and how they would delight in her every word.... It would be good for them, good for them as soldiers and good for them as men!... What a war it was that produced this!...
“Look!” she said, and laughed aloud.
Kendall turned. The doorway was closed by a rapidly augmenting crowd of boys in khaki, curious, eager, delighted, grinning.
“How do you do?” Maude said, with perfect calm. She walked toward them and extended her hand, which boy after boy seized bashfully. “I’m Miss Knox—and if you ever expect to get any hot chocolate, somebody’s got to put up the stove. It isn’t much of a stove.”
“Say, miss,” blurted out a sergeant, “if you’ll—er—git out of here a spell we’ll fix things up.... Say, was you calc’latin’ on stayin’?”
“I’m a permanent improvement,” she said.
From that instant Kendall had no doubts, conjured up no violated proprieties. Maude Knox was right to be there; there was no other spot in the world where it was so right for her to be....