In the days of Davies's convalescence Cranston had told him of Mrs. Barnard's call and of Brannan's story, and rejoiced that Brannan was Miss Loomis's patient on the train, and that all through the campaign the boy had borne himself well, and all this you may be sure did Cranston write to Mrs. Barnard, and most gratefully was it all acknowledged. She urged that as soon as possible now her son should be transferred to Cranston's troop as a surer and simpler path to his commission. After meeting and knowing the military gentlemen at home,—people in whom she had taken no interest whatever until her wayward son had taken to the army,—she had begun to picture him in a staff uniform and on duty with the general at home, and, motherlike, was eager to speed the consummation. And then Cranston's next letter told her that her boy's best friend and adviser, Lieutenant Davies, was from Urbana, and then very soon came the story of his engagement to Almira Quimby, her own niece. It was then that Almira was sent for and became Queen Paramount, for when do mothers cease to plan for wayward sons?
And now the bride was actually there in the army. The ladies had gathered to welcome her. The band had seranaded her the night of her arrival. The colonel and his wife, captains and lieutenants by the dozen, came to call, most of them with their better halves, some of the latter refined, high-bred, cultured women, some simple-mannered, warm-hearted army girls who knew no home but the regiment, no life but that on the plains. Some vapid, frivolous, and would-be fashionable, but all full of kindly motive. She could have had luncheons, dinners, and parties in her honor, and secretly moaned that it could not be, but Mr. Davies's deep mourning prohibited. She had dined en famille and in deep constraint at the Cranstons the evening after her coming, and not all Mrs. Cranston's cheery, chatty, cordial way, or Miss Loomis's courtesy and tact, could put poor Almira at her ease. She was set against them from the start, and it made the feast an ordeal which both Cranston and Davies would gladly have eliminated from memory could they do so. The latter had never yet spoken reprovingly to his wife, but this night he felt that something must be said. Just in proportion as her manner to her hostess had been unresponsive and cold so had her assumption of little wifely airs and proprietorship been comical. She seemed bent on extracting from Percy public and frequent demonstration of his lover-like side, and her appeals and endearments had furiously embarrassed him. They went home early, met callers at their own door, and were kept up late. That Mrs. Cranston should have turned and looked inquiringly into Agatha Loomis's face the instant the door closed upon them was to be expected. Her eyes were sparkling, her lips twitching with the mental ebullition going on within; but Agatha turned abruptly away. Mrs. Cranston then sought to search her husband's face, but the captain was forearmed and chose to keep his back towards his better half and to pull on his arctics and overcoat and gather up his little hurricane lamp. The trumpet was sounding first call for tattoo, and though it was no concern of his, for Mr. Sanders, his cheery subaltern, had just gone whistling by on his way to the troop quarters, Cranston preferred to face the falling snow rather than those speaking, luminous, quizzical, questioning, tormenting eyes, and so invented business for the occasion. "Don't sit up for me, Meg," said he, and she knew he simply would not be drawn into a discussion.
But she had to talk to somebody, and what was Agatha for? Agatha had palpably dodged and gone to her room, and would have been glad not to come down again. She even went into the boys' room and romped with her two young trooper cousins instead of allowing them to go to sleep. So up came Mrs. Cranston and ordered her out, and then, when the girl would have escaped and gone down-stairs again, Margaret confronted her in the hall, placed her hands on her shoulders, and with a world of mingled merriment and commiseration in her tone said, or rather asked,—
"Well?"
"Well what?"
"What do you think now?"
"Simply what I have maintained all along. That he did right."
"But what do you think of—of her?"
And Miss Loomis, shaking herself free, hurried by her friend and down the stairs. She refused to say.
Perhaps it might have been better had Mr. Davies postponed his first marital lecture. It was very gentle, very brief, but Almira had seen his vexation as they hastened home and had striven to avert the coming comments. She well knew wherein she had erred. Public endearments of any kind by word or touch had already been pointed out to her as unconventional in society. There were no people on the post in whose presence he more dreaded such demonstration than the two ladies of Cranston's household. There were no people in the world in whose presence she was more bent upon making display of her possession. He had interdicted the gown she longed to wear and indicated a simple black silk. In this point she had to yield, but she had conquered on the other, and now when he gravely reminded her of his caution, she declared she thought these people were his intimate friends, his confidants,—not mere society people,—and—of course—if he was ashamed to have them see—how dear he was to her——Oh, but why go on with the rest? Sobs and tears and swollen eyelids and sore lamentation, and pleas to be taken home again if this was to be the beginning of their married life. Davies knelt alone that night, and his prayer for guidance and strength came from the depths of an anxious heart.