Ten dances had passed; by actual count there were thirty girls "out of it," and something less than twenty still left to the cadets. And then the matter came to a head.
Cadet Lieutenant Wright, a first class man, captain of the football team, and a hop manager for his class, caused the trouble. Urged by all his desperate classmates and urged still more by the spectacle of Mark's dancing with a certain sweet creature who had hitherto devoted all her energies to making herself charming to him, he stepped forward in the middle of the dance and with his badge of manager upon his coat, touched Mark upon the arm.
Mark halted abruptly. The whole room stared.
"Mr. Mallory," said the lieutenant, "the cadets who are giving this hop request you to leave the floor."
Mark's face turned white; he bit his lip savagely to choke down his anger, and when he spoke at last his voice was hard and calm.
"The cadets who are giving this hop," he said, drawing the invitation from under his coat, "invited me by this to come. I shall consider your remark, sir, as a personal insult, for which you will be called upon to answer at Fort Clinton."
"As an invited guest and a cadet of this academy I most decidedly do."
Wright returned to his classmates; a brief consultation was held, ending in his stepping across the room and speaking to the leader of the band. The music stopped abruptly.
Three heartily delighted plebes escorted three heartily delighted damsels home that night. And wild indeed was the hilarity of them and of the Banded Seven.
"Victory! Victory!" was the cry. "We danced and we have conquered!"
"Hey, fellows! What do you think? Mark Mallory's in disgrace."
"Yes, and he's going to be fired. Whoop!"
The first speaker was Bull Harris. At the moment he was red in the face and breathless as the result of a long run across the parade ground. At the end of it he had burst suddenly into the midst of a crowd of his classmates with the excited exclamation above.
The effect upon them of the startling announcement was electrical. To a man they had leaped to their feet, with expressions of delight they made no effort to conceal.
"How do you know it, Bull?" demanded one of the crowd.
"The superintendent has sent for him right in the middle of drill," cried Bull.