"Help me out of this, doctor, in some way," he said. "I wish to be nobody's guest." And so, when old Frazier did actually mount a horse and, with Amanda in a stylish habit beaming at his side, did actually ride forth—the first time he'd been in saddle in a year—and meet Barclay's ambulance full a thousand yards out from the post, and bade him thrice welcome to the room they had prepared for him, Barclay beamed back his thanks and appreciations, and bade the colonel believe he would never forget his kindness and Mrs. Frazier's, but that he had every possible comfort awaiting him at his own quarters, and could never consent to incommoding Mrs. Frazier or the young ladies. Indeed, the doctor had made other and very different plans for him,—as indeed the doctor had. And Frazier rode back vaguely relieved, yet crestfallen. He knew Barclay and the doctor were right. He knew he himself shrank from such throwing of his daughters at a fellow's head; and then he quailed at the thought of Mrs. Frazier's upbraidings, for she, honest woman, felt it a mother's duty to provide for her precious lambs, the more so because their father was so culpably indifferent, if not shamefully negligent.
A balked and angered woman was Mrs. Frazier at the captain's politely veiled refusal to come and be nursed and captured under her roof. Tartaric acid tinged the smiles of her innocent children the next few days, and if ever there was a time when it behooved Laura Winn to be on her guard and behave with the utmost reserve as regarded her next-door neighbor, it was here and now. She could have read the danger signal in the Fraziers' greeting at parade that very evening, as, most becomingly attired, she strolled languidly down the line at the side of Æsculapius Junior, who, after seeing his patient comfortably stowed in bed, came forth to find her on the piazza, full of sympathetic interest and eager to know what she could do or make or have made in the way of appetizing dainties for the sufferer. Nor did she let him free until he found refuge in the midst of the deeply interested group in front of the colonel's quarters.
This was Tuesday evening, and only Brooks, Blythe, and Brayton were permitted to intrude upon the invalid after the long hours' trundle over the prairie roads. On the morrow the paymaster was to take his ambulance, escort, and emptied safe on the back track to Crockett's, and Barclay was to be allowed to see Mrs. Blythe; but, for the night, rest and quiet were enjoined. In answer to his queries, he was told that the latest news reported Mullane, Winn, and Bralligan scouring the Apache range, while Captain Haight, with forty men, was patrolling towards the Bravo. The post was flush with money. Fuller's bar was doing a rousing business, and Lieutenant Trott, guarding the stores turned over by Winn, was wondering when and in what shape the money value of the stores not turned over was to be paid to him, for the time was past, Winn was far, far away, no package of money had come for him, and Mrs. Winn calmly said it was no affair of hers and she had no knowledge when or by what hand it would be forthcoming. It was conceded at Worth that, in view of the danger in which her husband stood, both afield and at home, more anxiety and less adornment would better have become the lady, as she outshone all other women present when the line of infantry officers broke ranks at dismissal of parade.
CHAPTER XIV.
A week rolled by, a week little Jim Lawrence and other small boys long remembered for the good things they had to eat and drink; and now Galahad was sitting up again at his quarters, doing very well, said both doctors, so well that he could be out on the shaded piazza in a reclining chair, said Brayton,—but wouldn't, said Blythe,—and for good reasons, said the Fraziers feminine, "because then there'd be no dodging Laura Winn, if, indeed, he has succeeded thus far." True, he had not ventured outside his doors, and no one had seen her venture within them. True, Mrs. Frazier, Mrs. Blythe, and other motherly women had been to visit him,—Mrs. Frazier frequently,—and Mrs. Winn had been most particular in her daily inquiries,—"most persistent," said the Frazier girls. Those were days in which milk was a luxury in far-away Texas, but the delicate custards, whips, creams, and what the colonel's Hibernian orderly described as "floating Irelands," which that messenger bore with Mrs. Frazier's love, or Miss Frazier's compliments, or Miss 'Manda Frazier's regards and hopes that the captain was better this morning, could be numbered only by the passing days. What Mrs. Frazier was prepared to see or hear of was similar attention on the part of Mrs. Winn; but Mrs. Winn's attentions took a form more difficult to see, and, even in a frontier, old-time garrison, to hear of.
What Mrs. Frazier was not prepared to see was Mrs. Blythe in frequent confidential chat with the officer whom the colonel's wife chose to consider her own invalid. She had always fancied Mrs. Blythe before, but now she met her with that indescribable tone suggestive of unmerited yet meekly, womanfully borne injury, which is so superior to either explanation or resentment. Mrs. Winn was frequently on her piazza chatting with Mr. Brayton or Dr. "Funnybone," as the wits of the post had designated Collabone's right bower, "who has more brains in one head," said Collabone, "than the mess has in ten;" but she greeted Mrs. Frazier with an austere and distant dignity even more pronounced than Mrs. Frazier's manner to Mrs. Blythe, which plainly showed that Laura had not "been raised in the army for nothing," and that she had a will and temper and pluck that would brook no airs and tolerate no aspersions on Mrs. Frazier's part. Aspersions there had been, for her friend Mrs. Faulkner had not failed in that sisterly duty which so many women so reluctantly yet faithfully perform, and everything Mrs. and the Misses Frazier had even hinted, and some things they even hadn't, were duly conveyed to Laura's ears. She was angered at the Fraziers for daring to say such things, at Mrs. Faulkner for daring to repeat them, and at Barclay for daring to keep her beyond the possibility of their being true. Never before had she known what it was to strive for a look or word of admiration and to meet utter indifference. Yet those blue eyes of Barclay's had once fairly burned with passionate delight in her girlish beauty, and his words had trembled with their weight of love for her. No other woman, she believed, had yet come into his life and banished all memory of her; and, now that her beauty was but the riper for her years, she rebelled in her soul against the whisper that it could no longer move him.
Wedded though she was to Harry Winn, loving him after the fashion of her shallow nature so long as there was no man at the post from whom she sought to exact homage, she had time and again within the year felt towards her husband a sense of injury. What business had he had to woo her if he was so poor? What right had he to subject her to the annoyance of dunning letters, of suggestive inquiries on the part of her neighbors? Why should she submit to parsimonious skimping and cheese-paring, to living with only one servant when several other women had two, to all the little shifts and meannesses poor Harry had declared to be necessary? It was his business to provide for her needs. Her father had always supported her in style; why couldn't Harry do the same? True, she knew when she married him he had nothing but his pay. He told her everything, but she had never taken thought for the morrow, though she had taken perhaps too much thought of what she should wear or eat or drink. Laura loved the good things of this life, and had been freely indulged throughout her petted girlhood; and now, in the days when every woman seemed turning against her, purse, cellar, and larder were empty and her husband gone on a stupid foray to the mountains. None could say when he would return, or what new sorrow would meet him then. Other men managed to earn money or make money somehow outside their pay. Why should she, whose tastes, she said, were so much more refined, be mated with one who could only spend?
There is a time when many a homely face becomes radiant with a beauty too deep for sallow skin or heavy features to hide, and when a really winsome face becomes well-nigh angelic; but, even as Laura Winn bent over her sleeping child or nestled the unconscious little one in her bosom, the sullen fire of discontent, thwarted ambition, and wounded self-love smouldered in her deep, slumberous eyes. There were hours now when Baby Winn was left to the scant care of the household nurse, while the mother took the air upon the piazza during the day or flitted about from parlor to parlor along the row at night. She was restless, nervous, as all could see. She frequently assailed Brayton with queries for news, always decorously asking first if couriers had come or were expected from the command afield, yet speedily coming back to the real object of her constant thoughts, the now much honored officer, her next-door neighbor. For three days after he was pronounced able to sit up she did not succeed in seeing him at all, though so many other and, it should be explained, much older women did; but that did not abate one whit her determination that he should speedily see her.