“Well, you needn’t be so glad about it,” she retorted glumly.  “Maybe it wouldn’t seem quite so interesting if it were you and Roy.”

“Well, how do you know it wasn’t?”

The three girls stared.

“What was that you said?” demanded Betty weakly.  “I don’t think I quite—­”

“I said,” returned Grace calmly, and pronouncing each word with exaggerated distinctness, “that Roy and I have had a quarrel, which probably would make yours look like nothing at all.”

“Grace!” they cried in chorus, “do you mean it?”

For answer Grace turned to the mirror and began to arrange her hair.

“Ask Roy,” she flung at them over her shoulder.

Behind her the girls looked at each other dumbly, struggling with a wild desire to laugh and cry at the same instant.

“But how?” Amy was beginning dazedly when once more Betty came to the rescue.

“All this would be funny if it weren’t so impossible,” she said.  “Suppose we begin at the beginning and tell our experiences, since we’re all in the same boat.  It ought to be interesting—­if not instructive.”

Grace turned from the mirror and seated herself expectantly on the arm of a chair.

“Well, who’s first?” she demanded.

“I am,” volunteered Mollie unexpectedly, her eyes glittering.  “It was all so utterly absurd, and it made me so m-mad that I had to c-cry—­”

“So we see,” murmured Grace impatiently, but once more Betty sent her a warning glance.

“And then—­” she suggested.

“Well, Frank and I were taking a little walk when all of a sudden I happened to think of the bayonet drill Sergeant Mullins had invited us to.”

Betty and Grace started and leaned forward eagerly in their chairs.

“Yes?” they breathed.

“Well,” continued Mollie, her color rising, “I don’t know whatever got into Frank—­he never used to be like that.  He just sort of froze up and wouldn’t answer my questions or anything until I got so angry I told him that if he didn’t tell me what the matter was I’d say good-by to him right there and wouldn’t ever speak to him again.”

“Yes?” breathed the girls again.

“Then what did he say?” asked Grace.

“Why, he just got red in the face,” replied Mollie, “and said all right then, he’d tell me what the matter was.  And then he said”—­she laughed a little hysterically—­“that he just couldn’t stand the thought of my seeing so much of Sergeant Mullins—­think of it—­me, who have never said two words alone to the man in my life!”

“Well, I never!” Betty exploded, while the usually placid Grace seemed hardly able to keep her seat.  “That’s almost exactly what Allen said!”

“And Roy, too!” cried Grace dazedly.  “Girls, what does it mean?”

“It seems to mean,” put in Amy dryly, “that one or all of us are ready for the insane asylum.”

“Allen said,” Betty contributed, wide-eyed, “that it made him mad to see the way that Sergeant Mullins hung around the Hostess House all the time.  He made it quite plain that there was no doubt but what I was the main attraction.”