"Perfectly splendid, Captain," was the extravagant assurance, as Marjorie gently backed her mother into a chair. "I'm going to get out of Jerry's clothes and into my own and then we'll have a nice comfy old talk."
Slipping into a one-piece frock of blue linen, Marjorie brushed her dampened brown curls thoroughly dry and let them fall over her shoulders. Placing a sofa pillow on the floor close to her mother, she settled herself cozily at her mother's side and leaned against her knee, looking far more like a little girl than a young woman of seventeen.
It was a very long talk, for there was much to be said, and it lasted until the sun dropped low in the west and the early twilight shadows fell.
A sudden loud ring of the doorbell sent Marjorie scurrying to the door. She opened it to find a messenger boy, bearing a long, white box with the name of Sanford's principal florist upon it.
"For Miss Marjorie Dean," said the boy, handing her the box.
"Oh!" ejaculated the surprised lieutenant, almost dropping the box in her astonishment. Carrying it to the living-room table, she lifted the lid and exclaimed again over its fragrant contents. Exquisite, long-stemmed pink roses had been someone's tribute to Marjorie, and a card tucked in among their perfumed petals proclaimed that someone to be Harold Macy. At the bottom of the card was inscribed in Hal's boyish hand, "To my friend, Marjorie Dean, a real heroine."
Marjorie had scarcely recovered from this pleasant shock when her father appeared upon the scene and gathered her into his arms with an anxious, "How's my brave little lieutenant?"
"Why, General, who told you?" cried Marjorie. "I never dreamed you'd hear of it."
"It came to me through Mr. Arnold, who has the next office to mine," said Mr. Dean. "Mrs. Arnold telephoned him as soon as her daughter reached home. She was afraid he might hear an incorrect report of it from some other source."
"We never thought of that. We should have telephoned you. But it's my fault. I kept mother up in my room and talked so long to her that she forgot it," avowed Marjorie, apologetically.