other; evidently a love affair was on foot such as
everybody had expected since the night of the music ride. Colonel
Fortescue alone was grave, leaning back in his chair with sombre eyes
fixed on Broussard. He saw in Broussard a wild young officer who
needed a stern warning about a soldier's handsome wife; and, while
watching him, Colonel Fortescue was phrasing the very words in which he
meant to call Broussard to account the next day, for the Colonel was
not a man to postpone a disagreeable duty. It would be a very
disagreeable duty; the poignant memory of Anita lying on the tanbark
and Broussard having the skill to save her, still haunted Colonel
Fortescue's thoughts and came to him in troubled dreams. And
Anita--undoubtedly Broussard had impressed her imagination, and she was
a creature of such strong fibre that she must love and suffer more than
most human beings the Colonel knew, well enough.

At last, the singing was over and the listeners came out of a waking
dream and complimented Anita and Broussard, and the pleasant chatter of
a drawing-room once more began. Presently there were leave-takings.
Broussard gave Anita's hand a sharp pressure, but she looked at him
calmly, all her coldness resumed. Out in the winter night Broussard
cursed himself for falling in love with a child, who was an embodied
caprice and did not know her own mind--one hour thrilling him with her
gladness and her low voice and her violin, and the next, looking at him
as if he were a stock or a stone. But she was so precociously
charming! And that unlucky meeting with her and with the Colonel in
front of Lawrence's door, with Mrs. Lawrence putting her hand on his
shoulder. Broussard meant to go to the Colonel the very next day and
explain the whole business. The resolve enabled Broussard to sleep in
peace that night.

It was noon the next day before Broussard had a chance to ask for an
interview with Colonel Fortescue. Meanwhile, the Colonel had been
finding out things. He looked up the records of Broussard and Lawrence
and found that they were both natives of the same little town in
Louisiana. That might account for their intimacy, although Lawrence
was fifteen years Broussard's senior.

Just as the Colonel's orderly was crossing the hall of the headquarters
building he came face to face with Broussard, headed straight for
Colonel Fortescue's office. The orderly had a message from the Colonel
for Mr. Broussard; the Colonel d