"I—I wish they'd stop the old war," sighed Amy, who had come in in time to share the wonderful news. "I just can't bear the thought of it."
"Gee, that would be a nice note," broke in Will boyishly. "After all these weeks of training, to have the war stop just as we got ready to have a hand in it!"
"We'll be lucky if we don't leave a couple of hands in it," said Roy, again trying to be witty and again finding himself the battery for a score of indignant glances.
"If you think that's funny," Grace was beginning when Betty, color high, heart still beating suffocatingly from that brief little battle with Allen and her own inclination, interceded in his behalf.
"Oh, do leave him alone," she cried, patting Roy's scorned shoulder soothingly. "I, for one, would forgive him for anything he said or did just now without even being asked."
Roy gave her a grateful glance and Allen whispered close in her ear.
"You can be kind to every one but the one who loves you, Betty. Is that it?"
His voice was so low that no one but Betty could hear. And Betty felt an added rush of color sting her cheeks, and turned her eyes away to hide the confusion, the sudden fright in them.
If they had been alone no one knows what might have happened. But, even as it was, Allen, watching the flaming color and the downcast eyes, felt his heart leap joyfully and was almost—almost—satisfied.