No one who really analyzed Mrs. Frank Garrison’s features could say that she was a pretty woman. No one who looked merely at the general effect when she was out for conquest could deny it. Colonel Armstrong, placidly observant as usual, was quick to note the glances that shot between the cousins on the rear seat as the little lady came blithely alongside. He knew her, and saw that they were beginning to be as wise as he, for the smiles with which they greeted her were but wintry reflections of those that beamed upon her radiant face. Prime, paterfamilias, bent cordially forward in welcome, but her quick eyes had recognized the fourth occupant by this time, and there was a little less of assurance in her manner from that instant. “How perfectly delicious!” she cried. “I feared from what you said yesterday you weren’t coming, and so I never ordered the carriage, but came out in saddle—I can’t say on horseback with such a wreck as this, but every decent horse in the Presidio had to go out with the generals and staffs, you know, and I had to take what I could get—both horse and escort,” she added, in confidential tone. “Oh!—May I present Mr. Ellis? He knows you all by name already.” The youth in attendance and a McClellan tree two sizes too big for him, lifted his cap and strove to smile; he had ridden nothing harder than a park hack before that day. “Frank says I talk of nothing else. But—where’s Mr. Gray? Surely I thought he would be with you.” This for Armstrong’s benefit in case he were in the least interested in either damsel.
“Mr. Gray was detained by some duties in camp,” explained Miss Prime, with just a trace of reserve that was lost upon neither their new companion nor the colonel. It settled a matter the placid officer was revolving in his mind.
“Pardon us, Mrs. Garrison,” he said briefly. “We must hurry. Go on, driver.”
“Oh, I can keep up,” was the indomitable answer, “even on this creature.” And Mrs. Garrison proved her words by whipping her steed into a lunging canter and, sitting him admirably, rode gallantly alongside, and just where Mr. Prime could not but see and admire since Colonel Armstrong would not look at all. He had entered into an explanation of the ceremony by that time well under way, and Miss Lawrence’s great soft brown eyes were fixed upon him attentively when, perhaps, she should have been gazing at the maneuvers. Like those latter, possibly, her thoughts were “changing direction.”
Not ten minutes later occurred the collision between the hack and the heels that resulted in the demolition of one and “demoralization” of the rider of the victor. While the latter was led away by the obedient Mr. Ellis lest the sight of him should bring on another nervous attack, Mrs. Garrison was suffering herself to be comforted. Her nerves were gone, but she had not lost her head. Lots of Presidio dames and damsels were up on the heights that day in such vehicles as the post afforded. None appeared in anything so stylish and elegant as the carriage of the Prime party. She was a new and comparative stranger there, and it would vastly enhance her social prestige, she argued, to be seen in such “swell” surroundings. With a little tact and management she might even arrange matters so that, willy nilly, her friends would drive her home instead of taking Colonel Armstrong back to camp. That would be a stroke worth playing. She owed Stanley Armstrong a bitter grudge, and had nursed it long. She had known him ten years and hated him nine of them. Where they met and when it really matters not. In the army people meet and part in a hundred places when they never expected to meet again. She had married Frank Garrison in a hand gallop, said the garrison chronicles, “before she had known him two months,” said the men, “before he knew her at all,” said the women. She was four years his senior, if the chaplain could be believed and five months his junior if she could. Whatever might have been the discrepancy in their ages at the time of the ceremony no one would suspect the truth who saw them now. It was he who looked aged and careworn and harassed, and she who preserved her youthful bloom and vivacity.
And now, as she reclined as though still too weak and shaken to leave the carriage and return to saddle, her quick wits were planning the scheme that should result in her retaining, and his losing the coveted seat. There was little time to lose. Most of the crowd had scattered, and she well knew that he was only waiting for her to leave before he would return. Almost at the instant her opportunity came. A covered wagon reined suddenly alongside and kind and sympathetic voices hailed her: “Do let us drive you home, Mrs. Garrison; you must have been terribly shaken.” She recognized at once the wife and daughter of a prominent officer of the post.
“Oh, how kind you are!” she cried. “I was hoping some one would come. Indeed, I did get a little wrench.” And then, as she moved, with a sudden gasp of pain, she clasped Miss Lawrence’s extended hand.
“Indeed, you must not stir, Mrs. Garrison,” said that young lady. “We will drive you home at once.” Miss Prime and her father were adding their pleas. She looked up, smiling faintly.
“I fear I must trouble you,” she faltered. “Oh, how stupid of me! But about Stanley Armstrong—I haven’t even thanked him. Ah, well—he knows. We’ve been—such good friends for years—dear old fellow!”