She had stopped as though striving to dismiss him from her side, but he ignored her wishes entirely. His lips were curving into something very like a smile of amusement, and it nettled her.
"To be perfectly frank with you, Mr. Davies, I wish now that I had made a reconnoissance before venturing out so boldly. If there is anything I hate it is this idea of burdening a man with escort duty. Just as though one needed to be guarded at every step. It is the dependence of the thing I despise,—a dependence that is entirely forced upon us."
"Well, so long as the escort is not forced upon you, I hope you will not despise it. I am going with you because, as it's after taps, you may need help in rousing the steward. He was up all last night, I'm told, with Fritz, and may be abed now."
And so her protests, not her scruples, were silenced. Down the row they rapidly walked, under the sparkling heavens, through the keen, exhilarating air of the wintry prairie, passing, door by door, the quarters of the officers of the garrison, some still brightly lighted, others dark and silent. She was talking fast and with a nervous impulse as they hurried by the colonel's, the broad portals of whose official residence were just then thrown open to admit another party to join the little circle sure every evening to be surrounding Mrs. Stone, and welcoming voices and laughter floated out on the night. The moment before they passed the gate whence he had issued forth barely three minutes earlier. The hall light burned low as he left it, the parlor shades were down. Almira presumably was nursing her headache in the sanctity of the chamber at the rear. Boynton's upper story was occupied by a junior subaltern of the Fortieth, who was believed to sleep there at odd hours, but was generally to be found almost anywhere else.
"Mrs. Davies looked so well to-day," remarked Miss Loomis. "I hope she finds her welcome pleasant."
"She is very well, except for a headache that sent her early to bed to-night," he answered. "And her welcome from everybody has been most kind and cordial, and from none more so than from Mrs. Cranston and yourself. You are always adding to the obligations I am under."
"I shall quarrel with you some day if you talk of obligations, Mr. Davies. But I'm so sorry to hear of her headache," she went on, quickly, as though to prevent argument on the point. "The chapel does get very hot and stuffy by evening service. Ought they not to air it after Sunday-school?"
"It would be a good plan. But my wife did not go to-night. Her headache began earlier in the day. I thought the close atmosphere of the chapel would only increase it and so counselled her remaining home."
He remembered, however, that he had counselled her going early to bed, but found her engrossed in her volatile callers on his return. It was all very natural. Upon spirits like Almira's, communion with such gay and frothy natures acted like champagne. He was trying to believe he was glad she could be so readily benefited. The houses grew darker as they approached the east end. Even the hall lamp was extinguished at Devers's quarters, though there were lights aloft. Devers had a storm-door, another instance of his individuality, as even the colonel's quarters were not so embellished. It was a perfectly still night, not a whiff of wind astir, and yet Davies could have sworn the storm-door swung slowly open a foot or so as they neared the gate, then suddenly shut to. What was more, he felt that his companion had seen and noted the same circumstance, for she drew an instant closer to his side, then as quickly seemed to recollect herself and edged away.
Davies looked back over his shoulder. So certain was he that the storm-door had been opened and closed by some unseen hand within the wooden casing that he would have turned to investigate, but for his companion. He could not well leave her. They had now reached the east end, right in front of the set of quarters which were so soon to be his own. The hospital loomed up dark and massive across an open space two hundred yards away. Only a narrow foot-path had been cleared from the end of the sidewalk to the main entrance of the big building. He had not thought to put on his over-shoes, and so, letting Miss Loomis lead, Davies fell behind. Now that they were away from ear-shot of the quarters their talk languished. Davies at least was thinking of that mysterious door and wondering if he should not have looked into the matter then and there. Now it was too late. If some garrison prowler were the cause, he had doubtless by this time taken alarm and slipped away; if Captain Devers or any of his household were the "power behind," then it was none of Davies's business. Hurrying up the creaking, snapping steps of the hospital, they found the office-door locked. "I more than suspected you would need me," said Davies. "Will you wait one moment?" He tiptoed away through the long corridor, found the drowsy attendant in the big ward, and learned that the steward had gone to his little home in Sudstown, but would return in five minutes. It was nearer fifteen when he came, and meantime Miss Loomis and her escort seated themselves in the warm corridor and chatted in low tone as befitted the time and place. In one of the little wards a suffering soldier was moaning, evidently in penance for recent spree, and weakly imploring drink of a stolid nurse.