Mrs. Main, whom we'd met in New York, dashed off to Alvarado Springs a fortnight ahead of us, in time to get acquainted through letters of introduction with the highest-up officers at Fort Alvarado, and the wives of those who had any; also to put the furnished "cottage," as she called it (there must have been fifteen or twenty rooms), in order; and the night we arrived, after our long but utterly fascinating journey, she gave a dinner in honour of Father and Diana.
I had been tremendously interested in the whole trip from Washington to Arizona, and with the first glimpse I had of the romantic Springs I felt a thrilling sensation that it was a place where things were bound to happen. The hotel, as all who have heard of Alvarado must know, stands in the midst of a young forest, overlooking a canon that for colour is like a vast cup full of rainbows, and beyond the forest to the left is the garrison. From the higher stories of the hotel you can see the red roofs of the officers' quarters, and farther away the barracks and the big, bare drill ground, but from the wide verandas no houses are anywhere visible, except the colony of cottages built in Spanish fashion like the hotel itself, each having its own little garden with a flowery hedge. From the glorified cottage Mrs. Main had taken we could walk up to a dance at the hotel in five minutes.
I think Eagle would have liked to meet us at the railway station, but Di had plenty of excuses for not allowing that. He had met Mrs. Main, however, and in the afternoon he called. Father was out prospering round the little town, and visiting the smart club at which he had been put up as an honorary member. Di and our hostess (she made us call her Kitty, a sprightly name to which she struggled to live up to) were in the garden when Eagle came, but I happened to be in the drawing-room with a book, so I had about five minutes alone with him before Mrs. Main's black butler found the others.
I hadn't tried, as a well-regulated young girl would no doubt have tried, to "get over" being in love with Captain March. I had just simply said to myself that the kind of unhappiness which loving him made me suffer was better than any little wretched pretence at half-baked happiness I could hope for by putting him out of my mind. So I had basked in the painful luxury of thinking about him constantly, and dreaming dreams of how I might serve or sacrifice myself for him, and win his passionate gratitude. Consequently, when I raised my eyes from the Spanish novel I wanted to translate, and saw Eagle March come in at the door, I loved him a thousand times more than ever. I don't know if an unprejudiced person would call him actually handsome; but I thought there couldn't be on earth a man worth comparing with that brown-faced soldier.
He was glad to meet his "dear little pal" again, because of what he could get out of her about his loved one. He did hold back his eagerness long enough to rattle off, "Why, Peggy, you're growing up! By Jove, you're almost a woman, aren't you? and a pretty one, too—though you've kept your impish look, I'm glad to see!" But that was only the preface. As soon as he decently could, he turned the conversation to Diana. How was she? As beautiful as ever? Though of course she was! Did she ever speak of him? He'd passed sleepless nights after reading newspaper paragraphs which reported her on the eve of an engagement with this man or that—disgustingly rich, overfed brutes. Was there a grain of truth in any of the reports? No? Thank heaven! Well, then, perhaps there was a sporting chance for him after all!
"But, just like my luck," he went on, half laughing, "there's a chap here who's as formidable as any of them. A regular twelve-and-a-half-inch gun, latest make and improvements; his name's Vandyke; only a major; all the same he's got a pot of money. There's hardly a man in the army as rich as he is, if there's one. Soldiering means only fun for him. Most of us here are like me; or if they don't come from generations of soldiers as I do, they're in the service for a career. Vandyke will probably resign if he gets bored. He's dining at this house to-night. Notice him, and tell me what you think of him afterward, will you?"
"You're coming, too, aren't you?" I asked. "Mrs. Main—Kitty—said you were, and I was so glad."
"I should say I was coming!" he exclaimed. "Catch me giving Vandyke a clear field at the start, if he is my superior officer! You see, Vandyke——"
But on the name, as if it were her cue, Diana floated in, and Mrs. Main steamed in with her, through one of the long windows which opened on to the veranda. After that I ceased to exist.
Di wore white that night for the dinner party. A good deal of what Father was saving in hotel bills he put into clothes for her. It was a new dress, and sparkled all over like a moonlit lily crusted with dew. I had a fancy to put on the frock with roses on it, which I'd bought at Selfridge's so many months ago, with the money paid me by Eagle for my mother's lace. The dress was still alive, and on active service (though the roses began to look somewhat sat upon); and Eagle had never seen me in it. Not that he would notice me now! But I had a queer feeling of sentiment about the gown, and often I had told myself that never, never would I throw it away. I should have had a much queerer feeling if I'd known all that was yet to come of my first meeting with Eagle March in the Wardour Street curiosity shop.