"Oh, we sometimes go there for shopping."
"But to Cresswell's, I mean, for luncheon or supper. They say he gives a very creditable spread, and as quite a number of the ladies go there at times, and Willett and Burtis have a little party there to-night in honor of some of your friends, I thought I might persuade you; but—of course—if you do not go that way," he concluded, vaguely.
"No, thank you, Mr. Langston, we do not—go that way."
"But I shall see you, both, again before you start, I hope," he said, addressing Mrs. Cranston, but palpably appealing to Miss Loomis in the weakness of a strong man deeply in love.
"It will be a pleasure," said Margaret, cordially. She wished him to come. She meant him to come. She saw and forgave the wandering eyes. He might come any day he pleased before the 25th. There would still be a box or a trunk for him to sit on; but now, she concluded, artfully, she must get right back to the boys a minute. They were trying on some clothes that had just come from home, and she'd return very soon. So saying she vanished. It was half an hour before she reappeared, and Langston was on his knees in the parlor—packing books. It was the sweetest work he had known in years.
But when he was finally gone Margaret turned impulsively to Agatha. "Do you think it possible that—that she can be going there—with him—to-night? No matter who else goes. She cannot realize what she's doing. Would you go—should I go to see her?"
Miss Loomis stood at the window, leaning her forehead against the cold pane and gazing silently out over the snowy expanse of the parade. "You would be too late, Margaret," she answered, presently, and drew back from the folds of the heavy curtain, and Mrs. Cranston seemed to read in her companion's face what was coming along the road.
Two double sleighs drove briskly past the window. First came Stone's old swan-head behind his sedate team of bays, but from a perfect nest of robes and furs a gay party waved their hands in laughing salutation. Mrs. Stone and Mrs. Flight on the back seat, Messrs. Darling and Tommy Dot opposite them in the body of the sleigh. Captain Pollock in the driver's perch with a fair companion whose husband was still detained at the agency, but wanted her to have the best time possible instead of moping at home. Then came Willett's stylish sleigh and team, Sanders on the back seat with Mrs. Darling, Almira blooming in her accustomed place by "Phaeton's" side. She neither bowed nor kissed her hand to Cranston's window, but smiled sweetly up into her companion's eyes.
Mr. Langston, meantime, was dining at the officers' mess, and presently when Mrs. Leonard came over to see if she could not help her neighbor a trifle in her packing, she unfolded some of the details of the Braska plan. Messrs. Burtis and Willett desired to entertain some of their fort friends in town; Colonel "Pegleg" was the only man at the post who owned a sleigh; Mrs. Stone was invited as a matter of course, and accepted, provided the colonel felt well enough to let her go, and it was duly settled that six of the party should go in her sleigh. The rest was easily arranged. Langston was only too glad to go out with Willett and spend the hours until the return of the party in calling and dining at the post, hoping thereby to obtain more than one glance at and more than a few words with Miss Loomis. It was nearly sundown when they started. It would be eleven before they got back. Long before that hour the lights in Cranston's quarters were out and all was silence and peace. Langston, strolling by after making his evening calls, looked long, as lovers will, at the window of the room he knew to be hers, then went resignedly over to the store and took a hand with the officers at a game for which at other times he had no use whatever,—pool. He had to do something to while away the time until the sleigh-bells came tinkling back, and that seemed to be the only thing going.
But midnight came before the foremost sleigh. Pollock safely tooled his party into the post as the twelve o'clock call was going the rounds. Oh, they had had a blissful time! a glorious time! Such a delightful supper,—partridges and celery and all manner of dainties from Chicago, and such oyster patties! to say nothing of Roederer ad libitum. Then they had danced, and then they had more supper, and then started home. Willett would be along in a minute.