"Good you are," said Miss Saucy, "for you give everyone a piece and the supply might fail. But there's a good deal of you, such as it is, Kitten. You'll turn the three F's, if you live long enough."
"Some people don't think there's too much of me," said the Kitten, pouting.
"About half the Corps, I should judge. Now I believe in one grand master passion, don't you know. I think it's dear."
"It's a passion for a master—if you're in love with Mr. Kindred," said a fourth girl. "He'll manage you, Bessie. Make you behave."
If anybody had had time to notice the quiet little mother sitting there, he would have seen a very perceptible start, and a pair of eyes as indignant as such tender eyes could be. Those girls after her young magnate? Mrs. Kindred was fit to go that moment to headquarters and demand a cordon of red tape to surround her boy. But she could do nothing; could not speak to the girls, could not (alas) even shake them. Then she seemed to remember seeing him bow to these very ones; and with a certain dress-coat air, which now Mrs. Kindred marked as one of the new things about Magnus that disturbed her.
What if Cherry had seen and heard it all? And suddenly Mrs. Kindred knew why it was Cherry she thought of, and not Rose or Violet.
Here was a new and difficult complication. Yes, of course, it was all natural, the mother felt, and plain enough now she thought of it. Whether Cherry herself yet knew, or not, she would, just as soon as Magnus took a fancy to somebody else. Could he do that, after having once known her? Mrs. Kindred waited till the next relief went on, and Magnus within the guard tent was quite out of sight, and then went to her room to think and to pray.
Should she talk to Magnus?—no; skating is generally safer than navigation in broken ice. And the next day but one she was to go home.
No further sight of her boy could be hoped for that night, and Mrs. Kindred shut herself in and watched the silent camp long after the sweet "curfew" bugle had cried to every light: