CHAPTER XXI
THE FUNNIES
Nathalie, with a limpid brightness in her eyes, and a deep pink in her cheeks, was whirling about—doing a one-step—with her soldier friend, Van Darrell, who she had discovered was “a love of a dancer.” It was the night of the second Liberty Tea, this time held at the Sunset Hill House. The affair had not only proved a glorious success, each one of the performers doing his or her part even better than at the Tea-House, but it had also netted quite a pile of silver coins, to the delight of the children, and added several new pupils to Philip’s French class at the hotel, besides giving him a few private ones.
The informal little hop at the end of the performance contributed to the pleasure of the evening, proving a real joy-time to Nathalie, who loved dancing. The girl had laughingly asserted to Nita that she had fairly worn her slippers to a thread.
Compelled from sheer fatigue to rest, the young couple, in order to escape from the heat of the ballroom, had sought refuge in one of the little card-rooms opening from the long corridor. It was here, as they happily chatted, that Van suddenly made the announcement, somewhat regretfully, “Do you know, Miss Blue Robin, that this is my last evening with you and the mountains, for I leave for Camp Mills to-morrow morning?”
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” exclaimed the girl with a note of disappointment in her voice, for she was disappointed as well as surprised, for, somehow, she had taken a liking to this soldier-boy, with the frank, open gaze, who could be very merry at times, and then again unusually silent and grave. “We shall miss you at our Liberty Cheers, and Mr. de Brie, I know, will be lonely without his soldier ‘matey.’”
“I shall miss you all,” rejoined Van slowly, “for you girls have given me the joy-time of the summer, and I shall be sorry to say good-by to you all, especially you.” Van looked appealingly into the girl’s brown eyes, as if he wanted her to assure him that she would miss him.
Nathalie flushed a little, as she replied, “Well, it has been a great pleasure to meet you. I can assure you, however, that I never thought of meeting one of Uncle Sam’s soldiers when I came up here to these White Hills.”
“I would like to tell you,” continued Van,—he gave his companion an odd look as he spoke,—“that I know a girl by the name of Blue Robin. She’s an awfully good sort,—” again that funny little gleam in his eyes. “I had a letter from her a short time ago. It was the kind of a letter to set a fellow thinking. I would like to show it to you sometime,” he added hesitatingly.
“Why, isn’t that funny! Are you sure her name is like mine?” questioned Nathalie in a whirl of amazement. Van nodded and smiled with some amusement, as he assured Nathalie that he was quite positive her name was Blue Robin. But, as the girl continued to ply him with questions about this girl who, he insisted, bore her name, his answers grew evasive, until finally Nathalie desisted from her questions, in a maze of mystery.
Presently they were in the ballroom again, and while taking another turn Van asked his partner if she would answer his letter if he wrote to her. Nathalie grew red with embarrassment at this direct question, for, as she had been whirling about, it had suddenly occurred to her what a queer thing it was for Van to say he would show her another girl’s letter.