“I am very glad to find you so well,” Sally announced as she shook hands. It was difficult to confuse Sally. She had a great deal of poise of her own kind and a little superior air of detachment which was oddly amusing.
“Yes, I am very well, thanks to you. Still I insist upon knowing why you are not pleased to see me? I remember you snubbed me for suggesting that we might develop a sisterly and brotherly affection for each other, but now I have discovered Yvonne, won’t you be friends? It is hard upon me if you refuse to consent because my burden of gratitude to you must then be all the heavier. I am going back to join my regiment in a few days. Today I also came to warn Miss Lord and Captain Burton that there will be danger later this spring if you insist upon remaining here at your farm house. I cannot speak plainly, but I have reason to believe the German drive will not be long delayed. The Allied line will hold; they shall never break through, yet it might be wiser if you were out of the range of any possible danger.”
Without discussion of the question and disregarding the delightful possibility of tea, Sally and Lieutenant Fleury were walking side by side away from the farm house yard and toward the old château.
“You are very kind, Lieutenant Fleury,” Sally answered, speaking more gravely and with less childishness than one might have imagined, “but I do not believe we will consent to leave our farm house and to give up our work unless the war comes almost to our very door. Even then you know food might be useful to the soldiers and I am an extremely good cook.”
Sally’s seriousness had disappeared and she was more her accustomed self.
“Yet you have not answered my question or promised to be my friend,” Lieutenant Fleury argued, looking at his companion with an amused frown. Undoubtedly it was difficult to understand any human being who could be such a complete child at one moment and so wise the next; but perhaps Sally embodied the Biblical idea that true wisdom is only found among childish spirits.
As a matter of fact, Sally answered simply, “Why, of course I am your friend, Lieutenant Fleury. Now when I am beginning to understand more of what soldiers must endure, I feel as if I were a friend to every man in our allied armies, although they probably are not aware of the honor,” and again Sally dimpled in irresistible fashion.
Moreover, with this general acceptance of his friendship, Lieutenant Fleury was obliged to appear content, since Sally would give him no more satisfactory reply.
A few weeks later the long-heralded German drive burst with renewed fury along a long line in France. How the group of American Camp Fire girls met the unexpected dangers and demands upon their courage and resources will be the subject of the next Camp Fire book.