"And mother was but seventeen when she married you," softly laughed Lilian, snuggling to his side.
"And Mr. Willett so far from his captaincy," sighed her mother.
"Much nearer than father was to even a first lieutenancy when you married him," was the joyous answer. "He was only a second lieutenant by brevet."
"Well," said Mrs. Archer, "it seems different—somehow."
And so it seemed to us. "All too brief a wooing," said poor Archer. "God send her longer wedded bliss!"
CHAPTER XVI.
Moreover, as some one said in speaking of the sudden engagement, "It came about on a Friday evening, didn't it?" And then, too, when people were talking it over a few weeks later, as Mrs. Archer said, "it seemed different." Soldier folk sometimes have superstitions as surely as the sailor man is never without his, and a start on a voyage of love life, clearing port of a Friday evening, had its inauspicious side. But for the mishap that suddenly enveloped the happy man in flames at a moment when he was sprawled on his back with his whole right side, as it were, in a sling, Mr. Harold Willett might indeed have returned to duty and department headquarters with no other encumbrance than a mortgaged pay account, and it was not fair to Lilian to speak of her engagement as "announced" that Friday evening; but in her wondrous happiness she could find no fault with anything about it. It was all just perfect, just heavenly (where they neither give nor are given in marriage, which possibly accounts, as said our cynic, for so much that is heavenly about it). As an engagement, in fact, it did not exist until four days later, after other and equally important things had occurred, and we have merely taken Lilian's point of view, and left them out of that chapter and all consideration, as she did, so far as we are concerned, in order to have it all over and done with. But of course there had to be time for Willett to recover from the effects of the shock, to be clothed in his right mind and something less fragmentary than the relics of a robe de nuit, and a day in which to realize what had taken place. (I shrewdly suspect that our good friend Mrs. Stannard saw to it that Mr. Willett was informed of what Lilian had done and suffered on his account, if she did not dilate on what Lilian had betrayed.) And then came his very properly worded plea to be allowed to see her and thank her; and when there was equally proper demur on Mrs. Archer's part, Willett made his avowal in what even the mother held to be manly and convincing fashion, for, now that she knew that her darling's heart was gone—that it was too late to avert the inevitable—mother-like, she strove to see with her darling's eyes all that was good in him, and there was so very much that was good-looking. She never even hinted to her husband, much less to Lilian, that she had heard the paragon most vehemently accused of most unmanly and unbecoming conduct (for what was Mr. Case, after all, but an irresponsible inebriate?), and she saw that her daughter's happiness was wrapped up in this brilliant and most presentable young soldier. Willett certainly gave many a promise of eminence in his career and profession, so she set herself at once to work to talk the general into complaisance, and he, who loved her with all his heart, and believed her the best, the bravest, fondest, truest wife in all the army (as indeed she might have been without being the wisest), and who could deny Lilian nothing from the time she turned his best silken sash into a swing for herself and Wauwataycha Two Bears, her tiny Sioux playmate, till now that she had set her heart on one Harold Willett for a husband, broke down and surrendered as ordered. But there was that in the old soldier's face as he took Willett's hand that made the junior wince more than did the grip, which was mild enough. "She will be just such another wife as is her blessed mother," said Archer. "Be good and true to her, Willett."
"I will, so help me God!" said Willett solemnly, and then, at least, he meant it.
There had been an awkward little conference, an impromptu affair, at the mess the morning after the alarm of fire. Willett stock had been running down before that episode, and went "plumb out of sight" for several hours. It was held by Bonner, Bucketts, Briggs and Strong a most womanish thing on his part to have raised such a row and then "wilted." It was Bentley, the most disgusted man at the post, who now came to the rescue. "He was dumped on the porch like a sack of potatoes," said he, "and probably suffered exquisite pain, let alone the burns and the shock." Then, bunglingly, as bachelors will, and bachelors two of them were, they began to talk of the revelation that met their eyes and what it portended. No one, as yet, had told "the Old Man" of Willett's night at the store, and now no man would do it. Bygones were bygones. Willett would be up in a week or so, the better, perhaps, for enforced rest and abstinence, and now, of course, there could and would be no more of—of that sort of thing, and all his better traits would shine by contrast with his probably temporary lapse into frivolity. Even then, however, they wondered what Harris would think, and speculated as to what he would say. Bucketts had not guessed amiss when he said there was no love lost between the classmates. Bucketts, and all, had seen how much both the young men had been attracted by Lilian's grace and beauty, and the sweet, girlish freshness that proved such a charm. Bucketts, and all, had been in, as usual, to see Harris, and found him, as he said, a trifle set back by the excitement, and therefore rather more grave and quiet even than usual, but they said no word of Lilian and—possibilities. He knew. Strong had seen him when he came, and looked, and stood inert one moment there, unable to be of use, and had turned slowly back to his room under Bentley's roof. Everybody knew it could not be more than a day or two before the affair would be announced as an engagement, and while every man felt that Willett had won a prize far beyond his deserts, there was not one that felt like tendering congratulation.
But, as we said, there were other and important matters to claim the attention of the garrison, and just an hour before sunset that evening came the first. Case's week was up, and, sharp on time at noon on Saturday, Case came forth from his room, tubbed, trimmed and shaved, went silently to his desk and then turned to Mr. Craney to ask what had become of the mail.