CHAPTER I – TEA AND A TOAST
“And you once said, Heavy Stone, that you did not believe a poilu could love a fat girl!”
Helen said it in something like awe. While Ruth’s tea-urn bubbled cozily three pair of very bright eyes were bent above a tiny, iridescent spark which adorned the “heart finger” of the plumper girl’s left hand.
There is something about an engagement diamond that makes it sparkle and twinkle more than any other diamond. You do not believe that? Wait until you wear one on the third finger of your left hand yourself!
These three girls, who owned all the rings and other jewelry that was good for them, continued to adore this newest of Jennie Stone’s possessions until the tea water boiled over. Ruth Fielding arose with an exclamation of vexation, and corrected the height of the alcohol blaze and dropped in the “pinch” of tea.
It was mid-afternoon, the hour when a cup of tea comforts the fagged nerves and inspires the waning spirit of womankind almost the world over. These three girls crowded into Ruth Fielding’s little cell, even gave up the worship of the ring, to sip the tea which the hostess soon poured into the cups.
“The cups are nicked; no wonder,” sighed Ruth. “They have traveled many hundreds of miles with me, girls. Think! I got them at Briarwood – ”
“Dear old Briarwood Hall,” murmured Jennie Stone.
“You’re in a dreadfully sentimental mood, Jennie,” declared Helen Cameron with some scorn. “Is that the way a diamond ring affects all engaged girls?”
“Oh, how fat I was in those days, girls! And how I did eat!” groaned the girl who had been known at boarding school as “Heavy Stone,” and seldom by any other name among her mates.
“And you still continue to eat!” ejaculated Helen, the slimmest of the three, and a very black-eyed girl with blue-black hair and a perfect complexion. She removed the tin wafer box from Jennie’s reach.
“Those are not real eats,” complained the girl with the diamond ring. “A million would not add a thousandth part of an ounce to my pounds.”
“Listen to her!” gasped Helen. “If Major Henri Marchand could hear her now!”
“He is a full colonel, I’d have you know,” declared Jennie Stone. “And in charge of his section. In our army it is the Intelligence Department – Secret Service.”
“That is what Tom calls the ‘Camouflage Bureau.’ Colonel Marchand has a nice, sitting-down job,” scoffed Helen.
“Colonel Marchand,” said Ruth Fielding, gravely, “has been through the enemy’s lines, and with his brother, the Count Allaire, has obtained more information for the French Army, I am sure, than most of the brave men belonging to the Intelligence Department. Nobody can question his courage with justice, Jennie.”
“You ought to know!” pouted the plumper girl. “You and my colonel have tramped all over the French front together.”
“Oh, no! There were some places we did not go to,” laughed Ruth.
“And just think,” cried Helen, “of her leaving us here in this hospital, Heavy, while she went off with your Frenchman to look for Tom, my own brother! And she would not tell me a word about it till she was back with him, safe and sound. This Ruthie Fielding of ours – ”
“Tut, tut!” said Ruth, shaking her chum a little, and then kissing her. “Don’t be jealous, Helen.”
“It’s not I that should be jealous. It is Heavy’s friend with whom you went over to the Germans,” declared Helen, tossing her head.
“And Jennie had not even met Major Marchand —that was! ‘Colonel,’ I should say,” said Ruth. “Oh, girls! so much has happened to us all during these past few months.”
“During the past few years,” said the plump girl sepulchrally. “Talking about your cracked and chipped china,” and she held up her empty cup to look through it. “I remember when you got this tea set, Ruthie. Remember the Fox, and all her chums at Briarwood, and how mean we treated you, Ruthie?”
“Oh, don’t!” exclaimed Helen. “I treated my Ruthie mean in those days, too – sometimes.”
“Goodness!” drawled their friend, who was in the uniform of the Red Cross worker and was a very practical looking, as well as pretty, girl. “Don’t bring up such sad and sorrowful remembrances. This tea is positively going to your heads and making you maudlin. Come! I will give you a toast. You must drink your cup to it – and to the very dregs!”
“‘Dregs’ is right, Ruth,” complained Jennie, peering into her cup. “You never will strain tea properly.”
“Pooh! If you do,” scoffed Helen, “you never have any leaves left with which to tell your fortune.”
“‘Fortune!’ Superstitious child!” Then Jennie added in a whisper: “Do you know, Madame Picolet knows how to tell fortunes splendidly with tea-grounds. She positively told me I was going to marry a tall, dark, military man, of noble blood, and who had recently been advanced in the service.”
“Goodness! And who could not have told you the same after having seen your Henri following you about the last time he had leave in Paris?” laughed Helen. Then she added: “The toast, Ruthie! Let us have it, now the cups are filled again.”
Ruth stood up, smiling down upon them. She was not a large girl, but in her uniform and cap she seemed very womanly and not a little impressive.
