“What made you so sure, Jim?” she asked curiously.
“O ’cause. I knew you would. I wanted you hard, and when you want things hard they come—sometimes,” Jim said, the triumph dropping out of his voice with the last word.
Jim did most of the talking during supper, Laura throwing in a word now and then, and leaving Olga to speak or be silent, as she chose. She wondered what it was in Olga that attracted the boy, for he seemed quite at ease with her, taking it for granted that she liked to be there and was interested in what interested him; and although Olga was so silent and grave, there was a friendly light in her eyes when she looked at Jim, and she did not push him away when he leaned on her knee and once even against her shoulder, as the three of them gathered about the fire after supper. But when he had gone to bed, Olga began at once.
“Miss Laura, what about Elizabeth?”
“You told me,” Miss Laura returned, “that you thought Sadie had something to do with her absence from the Council meetings.”
Olga’s face hardened. “I’m sure of it. She’s a hateful little cat—that Sadie. I’m sure she is determined that Elizabeth shall not come here unless she comes too.”
“I wonder why the child is so eager to come,” Miss Laura said thoughtfully.
“Oh!” Olga flung out impatiently. “She’s bewitched over the Camp Fire dresses, and headbands, and all the other toggery, and she likes to be with older girls. She’s just set her heart on being a Camp Fire Girl and she’s determined that if she can’t be, Elizabeth shan’t be either—that’s all there is about it.”
“Then perhaps we’d better admit her.”
Olga stared in amazement and wrath. “Into our Camp Fire?”