“Bessy, can you understand that it is hard for a soldier to talk of what has happened to him?”

“I’ll say I can,” she replied.

“You’re sorry for me?” he went on, gently.

“Sorry!...  Give me a chance to prove what I am, Daren Lane.”

“Very well, then.  I will.  We’ll make a fifty-fifty bargain.  Do you regard a promise sacred?”

“I think I do.  Some of the girls quarrel with me because I get sore, and swear they’re not square, as I try to be.  I hate a liar and a quitter.”

“Come then—­shake hands on our bargain.”

She seemed thrilled, excited.  The clasp of her little hand showed force of character.  She looked wonderingly up at him.  Her appeal then was one of exquisite youth and beauty.  Something of the baffling suggestion of an amorous expectation and response left her.  This child would give what she received.

“First, then, it’s for me to know a lot about you,” went on Lane.  “Will you tell me?”

“Sure.  I’d trust you with anything,” she replied, impulsively.

“How long have you been going with boys?”

“Oh, for two years, I guess.  I had a passionate love affair when I was thirteen,” she replied, with the nonchalance and sophistication of experience.

It was impossible for Lane to take this latter remark for anything but the glib boldness of an erotic child.  But he was not making any assurances to himself that he was right.  Bessy Bell was fifteen years old, according to time.  But she had the physical development of eighteen, and a mental range beyond his ken.  The lawlessness unleashed by the war seemed embodied in this girl.

“With an older boy?” queried Lane.

“No.  He was a kid of my own age.  I guess I outgrew Ted,” she replied, dreamily.  “But he still tries to rush me.”

“With whom do you go to the secret club-rooms—­above White’s ice cream parlor?” asked Lane, abruptly.

Bessy never flicked an eyelash.  “Hot dog!  So you’re wise to that?  I thought it was a secret.  I told Rose Clymer those fellows weren’t on the level.  Who told you I was there?  Your sister Lorna?”

“No.  No one told me.  Never mind that.  Who took you there?  You needn’t be afraid to trust me.  I’m going to entrust my secrets to you by and bye.”

“I went with Roy Vancey, the boy who was with me at Helen’s the day I met you.”

“Bessy, how often have you been to those club-rooms?”

“Three times.”

“Were you ever there alone without any girls?”

“No.  I had my chance.  Dick Swann tried his damnedest to get me to go.  But I’ve no use for him.”

“Why?”

“I just don’t like him, Daren,” she replied, evasively.  “I love to have fun.  But I haven’t yet been so hard up I had to go out with some one I didn’t like.”

“Has Swann had my sister Lorna at the club?”

Her replies had been prompt and frank.  At this sudden query she seemed checked.  Lane read in Bessy Bell then more of the truth of her than he had yet divined.  Falsehood was naturally abhorrent to her.  To lie to her parents or teachers savored of fun, and was part of the game.  She did not want to lie to Lane, but in her code she could not betray another girl, especially to that girl’s brother.