“What lovely hair you have! Oh! do be kind to yourself, and to all the rest of us.”
She lifted her head. “Why, anyway, should it make any difference in the long run what I do about it?” she demanded of the universe.
“Then you won’t go?” Calmiden exclaimed joyously.
Still Julie hesitated. But the instincts of youth and the joy of living had won the struggle in her breast.
“No,” she agreed.
When Julie went to the mess that evening, she found the Major scowling heavily at the table cloth. He announced at last: “I’ve just received an order from the Department which revokes commissary privileges for civilians. This will of course deprive them of the privilege of Army messes. I seldom make any comment upon my orders, but right now this appears to be particularly unfortunate. We are a remote and inaccessible unit of society, facing the roughest conditions; and now some of us are about to be completely cut loose. Supplies will have to be procured in Solano, from Shylocks who exact excessive prices. They must be requisitioned at once, but until they arrive, I shall, on my own responsibility, keep this mess open.”
He looked at Julie as he spoke. From the first, he had made her his special charge. The girl was aghast. For the purchase of large supplies she had no money, having despatched it all to her creditor across the ocean. She left the room heavily, and groped her way down the road. There were no fire-flies to light the world to-night.
Suddenly some one stepped out from among the trees and softly spoke her name. He made a quick sign for silence, and she suppressed the incredulous cry that had sprung to her lips.
It was Adams, dropped down from the skies; for how else, with Dao on the other side of the island, could he have gotten here?
“My hour came, and I bolted!” he said. “I’ve ridden without sleep two days through a wilderness. The ogre wouldn’t let me have a leave; but I persuaded him to give me a three-day hunting pass to go after deer in the mountains. Don’t know how I ever got through; and if the Major should find it out—or any of them—I’d be court-martialled and chucked. There seems to be a path in this grove, which we can follow to get out of the way of observation. I came, of course, to talk to you.”