"Please, won't you, Bengal dear?" coaxed Agony in her most irresistible
manner. "Will you do it for me if you won't do it for Miss Peckham?"

Bengal could not hold out against the coaxing of her adored one, but she
still hesitated, bargaining her promise for a reward. "If you'll let me
wear your ring for the rest of the summer, and come and kiss me
goodnight every night after I'm in bed--"

"All right," Agony agreed hastily, with a sigh of resignation for this
departure from her fixed principles regarding the lending of jewelry and
about promiscuous demonstrations of affection, but peace in camp was
worth the price.

Bengal claimed the ring at once, and then, after pawing Agony over like
a bear cub, said a little shamefacedly, "I wish I were as good as you
are. You're so honorable. How do you get such a 'nice sense of honor' as
you have? I think I'd like to have one."

"Such a nice sense of honor as you have!" Agony jerked up as though she
had been jabbed with a red hot needle. "Such a nice sense of honor as
you have!" The words lingered in her ears like a mocking echo. The smile
faded from her lips; her arm stiffened and dropped from Bengal's
shoulder. The frank admiration in the younger girl's eyes cut her to the
quick. With a haggard look she turned away from Bengal and wandered away
to the other part of the island, away from the girls. Just now she could
not bear to hear their gay, carefree voices. What would she not give,
she thought to herself, to have nothing on her mind. She even envied
rabbit-brained little Carmen Chadwick, who, if she had nothing in her
head, had nothing on her conscience either.