"Disobeyed his orders flatly," suggested Captain Snaffle, who stood by the colonel on every occasion when not himself the object of that officer's satire or censure.
"Disobeyed no order," said Sumter, as stoutly. "Simply did what many another has done, and nobody hurt. Nor would Lanier have been noted, perhaps, if he had not first asked to turn over his sword to Trotter."
But even that could not fully account for the colonel's rancor, and, though the music and dance went on, men and women both, with clouded faces, found themselves asking the question: "What could have angered him so at Lanier?" And in a corner of the ladies' dressing-room two pretty girls, with difficulty soothed by Mrs. Sumter, were vainly striving not to cry their eyes out—Kate Sumter dismayed at the almost uncontrollable grief of her friend, who, strange to military measures, imagined that Bob's arrest was but the prelude to his being shot at sunrise, or something well nigh as terrible.
Not ten minutes after Lanier went out, and went silent but in unspeakable wrath, Paymaster Scott came dawdling in, and though but a casual visitor at the post, just back that day from a tour of the northward camps and forts along the Indian border, he saw at a glance that something had gone amiss. The colonel was laboriously waltzing; three or four couples were mechanically following suit, but most of the men were gathered about the buffet, and most of the women huddled at the dressing-room door, and Scott, marching over to pay his respects to the colonel's wife, and explain his coming at so late an hour, noted instantly the trouble in her serious face. He had known her long and liked her well, as, despite occasional differences at whist, he did her husband. Captain Snaffle was speaking with her at the moment. Mrs. Snaffle was at her side. "Why did they tell her at all?" Mrs. Snaffle was asking, with much spirit and obvious effort to control a racial tendency to double the final monosyllables. "Sure they might have known 't would sc—frighten the life out of her."
"Sc—frighten who?" asked Scott, who was friends with everybody and, for more reasons than his office, a welcome guest wherever he went. Snaffle shot a warning glance at his wife, which fell, as he said, "unaided."
"It's Bobby Lanier, meejor, only you mustn't sp—refer—to it." Mrs. Snaffle, when self-controlled, discreetly shunned such vowels as betrayed her origin, a totally useless precaution, since all men knew it and liked her none the less.
"Lanier? Oh, yes, I thought it was Bob I saw a while ago streaking it across the parade. It's bright as day in the moonlight with the snow. What's Bob got to do with frightening folk?" And now he was shaking hands with all three.
"Something very unfortunate has happened, major," said Mrs. Button. "Mr. Lanier was officer-of-the-guard and asked to attend the dance, Mr. Trotter offering to take charge of the guard. Colonel Button felt compelled to decline, and—he came any way. You know, of course, that couldn't be overlooked."
"H'm," said Scott gravely and reflectively. "And who is so frightened?"
"Miriam Arnold; a very charming girl who is visiting the Sumters. Indeed, it looks as though she cared for him. It's no secret that he's in love with her."