It was much after nine then and the excitement caused by the alarm was about over, the troops going back to barracks and presumably to bed. The captain apologized for calling on him that late in the evening, but told him a man recognized as Murray, deserter from the cavalry, was secreted somewhere in the neighborhood, and it was reported that he, Stuyvesant, could give valuable information concerning him. Stuyvesant could and did, and in the midst of it in came Miss Perkins, flushed, eager, and demanding to know if that villain was yet caught—"and if not, why not?"
Then she caught sight of Stuyvesant and precipitated herself upon him. That man Murray had hatefully deceived her and imposed upon her goodness, she declared. She had done everything to help him at the Presidio, and he had promised her a paper signed by all the boys asking that the P. D. A.'s be recognized as the organization the soldiers favored, and showed her a petition he had drawn up and was getting signatures to by the hundreds. That paper would have insured their being recognized by the government instead of those purse-proud Red Cross people, and then he had wickedly deserted, after—after—and Stuyvesant could scarcely keep a straight face—getting fifty dollars from her and a ring that he was going to wear always until he came back from Manila—an officer. Oh, he was a smart one, a smooth one! All that inside of three days after he got to the Presidio, and then was arrested, and then, next thing she knew, he had fled,—petition, money, ring, and all.
Another soldier told her the signatures were bogus. And that very night she recognized him, spite of his beard, and at sight of her he had cut and run. ("Well he might!" thought Stuyvesant.) And then Miss Perkins yielded to the strain of overtaxed nerves and had to be conducted home.
She lived but a block or two away, and it was Stuyvesant who had to play escort. The air, unluckily, revived her, and at the gateway she turned and had this to add to her previous statements.
"You think the Ray people your friends, lieutenant, and I'm not the kind of a woman to see a worthy young man trifled with. You've been going there every day and everybody knows it, and knows that you were sent away to Iloilo in hopes of breaking you of it. That girl's promised in marriage to that young man who's got himself into such a scrape all on her account. He's here—followed her here to marry her, and if he's found he's liable to be shot. Oh, you can believe or not just as you please, but never say I didn't try to give you fair warning. Know? Why, I know much more about what's going on here than your generals do. I have friends everywhere among the boys; they haven't. Oh, very well, if you won't listen!" (For Stuyvesant had turned away in wrath and exasperation.) "But you'd be wiser if you heard me out. I've seen Mr. Foster and had the whole story from his lips. He's been there every day, too, till he was taken sick——"
But Stuyvesant was out of the gate and at last out of hearing, and with a vicious bang to the door, the lady of the P. D. A.'s, so recently victimized by the astute Sackett, retired to the sanctity of her own apartment, marvelling at the infatuation of men.
And yet, though Stuyvesant had angrily striven to silence the woman and had left her in disgust, her words had not failed of certain weight. Again he recalled with jealous pain the obvious indifference with which his approaches had been received. True, no well-bred girl would be more than conventionally civil to a stranger even under the exceptional circumstances of their meeting on the train. True, she was cordial, bright, winsome, and all that when at last he was formally presented; but so she was to everybody. True, they had had many—at least he had had many—delightful long interviews on the shaded deck of the Sacramento; but though he would have eagerly welcomed a chance to indulge in sentiment, never once did Marion encourage such a move. On the contrary, he recalled with something akin to bitterness that when his voice or words betrayed a tendency towards such a lapse, she became instantly and palpably most conventional.
Now, in the light of all he had heard from various sources, what could he believe but that she was interested, to say the least, in that other man? Well and miserably he recalled the words of Farquhar, who had served some years at the same station with the Rays: "She's the bonniest little army girl I know, and her head's as level as it is pretty—except on one point. She's her father's daughter and wrapped up in the army. She's always said she'd marry only a soldier. But Maidie's getting wisdom with years, I fancy. Young Foster will be a rich man in spite of himself, for he'll have his mother's fortune, and he's heels over head in love with her."
"But I understood," interposed the general, with a quick glance at Stuyvesant, who had risen as though to get another cigar, "that Ray didn't exactly approve of him."
"Oh, Ray didn't seem to have any special objection to Foster unless it was that he neglected his business to lay siege to her. Foster's a gentleman, has no bad habits, and is the very man nine women out of ten would rejoice in for a husband, and ninety-nine out of ten, if that were a mathematical possibility, would delight in as a son-in-law. He isn't brilliant—buttons would have supplied the lack had he been in the cavalry. I dare say he'll be ass enough to go in for a commission now and sell out his ranch for a song. Then, she'd probably take him."