Geraldine’s arms were round her friend’s neck in a moment.
“You poor darling!” she cried, kissing her; “I knew somebody had been hurting your feelings; I just knew it! As if it were your fault that your father happened to be a German! I’d just like to kill the people who say unkind things to you.”
“Oh, hush, hush, Geraldine,” soothed Gretel, smiling through her tears. “You mustn’t get so excited about nothing. No one has said anything unkind. That isn’t why I’m crying. It’s because—oh, I can’t talk about it, but war is so terrible! It makes even good people do things they would be ashamed of at any other time. I’m frightened, Geraldine; I suppose it’s foolish, but I can’t help being frightened.” Gretel laid her head on her friend’s shoulder with a sob.
Geraldine soothed and comforted her as best she could, and in a few minutes Gretel dried her eyes and began to dress for dinner. But though she asked no more questions, Geraldine was not satisfied.
“Something did happen this afternoon,” she told herself with conviction. “Gretel would never have cried like that for nothing. Perhaps she’ll tell me about it by and by, but I don’t believe I’d better say any more just now.”
But Gretel did not “tell her about it by and by.” She was very quiet all the evening, and her friend’s efforts to discover the cause of the trouble met with so little response that Geraldine began to feel a little hurt. It was the first time in all the years of their friendship that Gretel had ever had a secret in which Geraldine had not shared.
CHAPTER VIII
ADA EXPRESSES AN OPINION
“Come down here, Jerry; I want to talk to you.”
Jerry Barlow swung himself down from the piazza railing, from whence he had been watching the departure of a sailboat filled with Sunday pleasure-seekers, and joined his sister on the lawn.