He faced her, resting both hands lightly on her shoulders.

“Belle, we were pretty near sweethearts in the High School, I think,” he went on, huskily, but looking her straight in the eyes.  “At least, that was my hope, and I hope, most earnestly, that it’s going to continue.  Belle, I am a long way from my real career, yet.  It will be five years, yet, before I have any right to marry.  But I want to look forward, all the time, to the sweet belief that my schoolgirl sweetheart is going to become my wife one of these days.  I want that as a goal to work for, along with my commission in the Navy.  But to this much I agree:  if you say ‘yes’ now, and find later that you have made a mistake, you will tell me so frankly.”

“Poor boy!” murmured Belle, looking at him fully.  “You’ve been a plebe until lately, and you haven’t been allowed to see any girls.  I’m not going to take advantage of you as heartlessly as that.”

Yet something in her eyes gave the midshipman hope.

“Belle,” he continued eagerly, “don’t trifle with me.  Tell me—­will you marry me some day?”

Then there was a little more talk and—­well, it’s no one’s business.

“But we’re not so formally engaged,” Belle warned him, “that you can’t write me and draw out of the snare if you wish when you’re older.  And I’m not going to wear any ring until you’ve graduated from the Naval Academy.  Do you understand that, Mr. David Darrin?”

“It shall be as you say, either way,” Dave replied happily.

“And now, let us get started, or we shan’t get out on the street to-day,” urged Belle.

Then they passed out on the street, and no ordinarily observant person would have suspected them of being anything more than school friends.

Being very matter-of-fact in some respects, Belle’s first move was to go to a stationer’s, where she bought a little notebook bound in red leather.

Dave tried to pay for that purchase, but Belle forestalled him.

“Why didn’t you allow me to make you that little gift?” he asked in a low tone, when they had reached the street.

“Wait,” replied Belle archly.  “Some day you may find your hands full in that line.”

“One of my instructors at Annapolis complimented me on having very capable hands,” Dave told her dryly.

“The instructor in boxing?” asked Belle.

It was a wonderfully delightful stroll that the middy and his sweetheart enjoyed that September forenoon.

Once Dave sighed, so pronouncedly that Belle shot a quick look of questioning at him.

“Tired of our understanding already?” she demanded.

“No; I was thinking how sorry I am for Danny boy!  He doesn’t know the happiness of having a real sweetheart.”

“How do you know he doesn’t?” asked Belle quickly.  “Does he tell you everything?”

“No; but I know Danny’s sea-going lines pretty well.  I’d suspect, at least, if he had a sweetheart.”