Looking down, he saw that her eyes were filling, her lips paling, and a rush of tenderness overcame him as he simply and gently answered:
“Yes, and there is no time to be lost.”
All these last days, it will be remembered, Mrs. Frank Garrison with pretty “Cherry Ripe” had found shelter at the Presidio. The Palace was no place for a poor soldier’s wife, and there was no longer a grateful nabob as a possible source of income. It is doubtful indeed whether that mine could be further tapped, for the effusive brother-in-law of the winter gone by had found disillusion in more ways than one. Garrison, busy day and night with his staff duties, had plainly to tell his capricious wife that she had come without his knowledge or consent, and that he could not think of meeting the expense of even a two weeks’ stay in town. He could not account for her coming at all. He had left her with his own people where at least she would be in comfort while he took the field. He desired that she should return thither at once. She determined to remain and gayly tapped his cheek and bade him have no concern. She could readily find quarters, and so she did. The regular garrison of the Presidio was long since afield, but the families of many of its officers still remained there, while the houses of two or three, completely furnished so far as army furnishings go, were there in charge of the post quartermaster. From being the temporary guests of some old friends, Mrs. Frank and her pretty companion suddenly opened housekeeping in one of these vacated homes, and all her witchery was called into play to make it the most popular resort of the younger element at the post. Money she might lack, but no woman could eclipse her in the dazzle of her dainty toilets. The Presidio was practically at her feet before she had been established forty-eight hours. Other peoples’ vehicles trundled her over to camp whenever she would drive. Other peoples’ horses stood saddled at her door when she would ride. Other peoples’ servants flew to do her bidding. Women might whisper and frown, but for the present, at least, she had the men at her beck and call. Morn, noon and night she was on the go, the mornings being given over, as a rule, to a gallop over the breezy heights where the brigade or regimental drills were going on, the afternoons to calls, wherein it is ever more blessed to give than to receive—and the evenings to hops at the assembly room, or to entertaining—charmingly entertaining the little swarm of officers with occasional angels of her own sex, sure to drop in and spend an hour. Cherry played and sang and “made eyes” at the boys. Mrs. Frank was winsome and genial and joyous to everybody, and when Garrison himself arrived from camp, generally late in the evening, looking worn and jaded from long hours at the desk, she had ever a comforting supper and smiling, playful welcome for her lord, making much of him before the assembled company, to the end that more than one callow sub was heard to say that there would be some sense in marrying, by George, if a fellow could pick up a wife like Mrs. Frank. All the same the post soon learned that the supposedly blest aide-de-camp breakfasted solus on what he could forage for himself before he mounted and rode over to his long day’s labor at Camp Merritt. Another thing was speedily apparent, the entente cordial between her radiant self and the Primes was at an end, if indeed it ever existed. She, to be sure, was sunshine itself when they chanced to meet at camp. The clouds were on the faces of the father and daughter, while Miss Lawrence maintained a serene neutrality.
They were lingering in ’Frisco, still hopefully, were the Primes. The detectives on duty at the landing stage the evening Stewart’s regiment embarked swore that no one answering the description of either of the two young men had slipped aboard. Those in the employ of the sad old man were persistent in the statement that they had clues—were on the scent, etc. He was a sheep worth the shearing, and so, while Mr. Prime spent many hours in consultation with certain of these so-called sleuth-hounds, the young ladies took their daily drive through the park, generally picking up the smiling Schuyler somewhere along the way, and rarely omitting a call, with creature comforts in the way of baskets of fruit, upon the happy Billy, whose limits were no longer restricted to his tent, as during the first week of his arrest, but whose court was ordered to sit in judgment on him the first of the coming week. Already it began to be whispered that Armstrong had a mine to spring in behalf of the defense, but he was so reserved that no one, even Gordon, sought to question.
“Armstrong is a trump!” said Billy to Miss Lawrence, one fair morning. “He’ll knock those charges silly—though I dare say I could have wormed through all right; only, you see, I couldn’t get out to find people to give evidence for me.”
“Do you—see him often?” she asked, somewhat vaguely.
“Armstrong!” exclaimed Billy, in open-eyed amaze. “Why, he’s here with me every day.”
“But never,” thought Miss Lawrence, “in the morning—when we are.”