"Because I am interested in knowing," Belle answered. "Mr. Cameron is with Laura a great deal these times."
"Is he?" asked Dick, with another sinking at the heart.
"Oh, yes," Belle replied. "Some folks in Gridley are nodding their heads wisely, and pretending they can guess what is going to happen before long. But I'm very certain that there is nothing quite definite as yet. Indeed, I'm not quite sure that Laura really knows her own mind as yet."
Soon after that, Miss Meade requested to be conducted back into the ballroom, to find Greg, who was to be her next partner.
"Now, good gracious, I hope I've really given Cadet Slowpoke a broad enough hint," thought Belle. "If he doesn't go ahead and speak to Laura now, it'll be because he doesn't care. And Leonard Cameron isn't a bad fellow, even if he does prefer the yardstick to a sword!"
As for Dick, his evening was spoiled. His sense of honor prevented his "speaking" to Laura until he felt that his future in the Army was assured.
Yet spoiled as his evening was, Prescott did his best to make it a bright occasion for Laura Bentley.
The next morning, while the members of the cadet corps were grinding at recitations, or boning over study desks in barracks, Mrs. Bentley and the girls rode down the slope in the stage and boarded a train for New York.
Dick had not "spoken."