Perhaps Nona became conscious of the other girl's gaze, for she drew away from her companion.
"By the way, Barbara," she exclaimed, "there is something I have wished to tell you for several days! Weeks ago when you told me you had discovered Lieutenant Hume a prisoner in Brussels, I wrote him a note. It must have taken ages for my letter to get to him. Anyhow, I received three or four lines from him the other day. I suppose it was all he was permitted to write. But he thanked me and said he was getting on pretty comfortably. Certainly I could not but admire his courage."
Dick Thornton frowned. "You don't mean, Nona, that you wrote a letter to Lieutenant Hume in prison without his asking you. I didn't suppose you knew him sufficiently well."
But before Barbara could confess that the suggestion had come from her, Mildred Thornton interposed.
"Don't be absurd, Dick. You are taking everything in a gloomy fashion this afternoon. I should have written Lieutenant Hume myself if Nona had not. He is in hard luck, when a single line from the outside world is cheering. We must go now. Please do your best to get me permission to visit Eugenia. In the meantime I shall see what I can do. Sorry we had to have such a dismal party tea. Hope for better news next time."
CHAPTER XVI Louvain
Recently Nona Davis had begun to confess to herself that she might some day be able to like Dick Thornton more than an ordinary acquaintance.
Without doubt this idea had come to her gradually, for during their early acquaintance he had simply represented Mildred's brother and Barbara's especial friend. When she thought of him at all it had been chiefly in his relation to the other two girls.