“There is no need to,” replied Mrs. Bentley.

At that moment Bert Dodge espied the little party.  After a short, but curious stare, Bert turned and came toward them.

CHAPTER VIII

CADET DODGE HEARS SOMETHING

It was an embarrassing position.  So, at least, thought Laura Bentley.

“Let us walk on,” she suggested, turning as though she had not seen Dodge.

“Humph!” muttered Dodge, turning his own course.  “The girls are showing their backs to me.  Humph!  Not that I care about them particularly, but folks back in Gridley will be asking them if they saw me, and they’ll answer that they didn’t speak with me.  There’s no use in running into a snub, out here in the open.  But it’s easy!  I’ll stag it at the hop tonight, and I can get within range before they can signal me to keep away.”

Smiling grimly, Dodge went to his tent.

After a while it was necessary for Dick and Greg to take their friends back to the hotel, for the cadets must be on hand punctually for supper formation.

“Mr. Anstey and I will call for you at 7:30, if we may,” said Dick.

“We shall be ready,” Laura promised.  “And that we may not keep you waiting, we’ll be down on the veranda.”

And waiting they were.  Dick and Anstey found Mrs. Bentley and the girls seated near the ladies’ entrance.

Anstey, the personification of southern grace and courtesy, made his most impressive greetings to the ladies.  His languid eyes took in Laura Bentley at a glance, almost, and he found her to be all that Prescott had described.  Belle Meade won Anstey’s quick approval, though nothing in his face betrayed the fact.

At first glance, it appeared that both girls were very simply attired in white, but they had spent days in planning the effects of their gowning.  Everything about their gowning was most perfectly attuned.  Above all, they looked what they were—–­two sweet, wholesome, unaffected young women.

“We have time now for a short stroll to camp,” proposed Prescott.  “If you would like it, you can see how we live in summer.  The camp is lighted, now.”

So they strolled past the heads of the streets of the camp.  At the guard tent, Dick and Anstey explained the routine of guard duty, in as far as it would be interesting to women.  They touched, lightly, upon some of the pranks that are played against the cadet sentries.

Wherever Mrs. Bentley and the girls passed, cadet friends lifted their caps to the ladies with Prescott and Anstey, the salutes being punctiliously returned.

Bert Dodge was in a rage.  He could not get so much as the courtesy of a bow from these girls whom he had known for years.  He was being cut dead and he knew it, and the humiliation of the thing was more than he could well bear.  A half hour later, he saw the party coming, and discreetly took himself out of sight.