"It wouldn’t interest you."
"Yes, it would. Is he the same one?"
"Of course he is! I’m not one to be chopping and changing. Once I’ve given my word, I stand by it."
This, very obscurely, was intended as a reproach to Angelica, and Angelica, though not conscious of any breach of faith in such a connection, felt none the less guilty before the righteous Annie.
"I know," she said. "Well, I hope you’ll be happy, Annie."
"I dare say I will. It can’t be too soon for me. The way things have changed here—I never saw the like!"
"How have they changed?" Angelica inquired.
"There’s that Courtland sitting up-stairs at the table with them, and me expected to wait on him. Her ‘war secretary,’ she calls him. He’s no more a secretary than I am. Secretaries write your letters for you, but Courtland—he couldn’t write letters for any one. He’s ignorant. And him to be set up above me, like this! And my young man’s a sergeant already. Why isn’t Courtland in the army, like his betters? Well!" she added piously. "They may be exalted above me now, but the time will come when they’ll all be cast down so far below me I can’t even so much as see them!"
And this meant Angelica, too. She was among the black sheep, the unworthy and the wicked, temporarily set above the righteous, only to be hurled down and utterly destroyed. Annie bade her good night with dour relish, in the sure and certain hope of a glorious triumph. She knew how it would be with this Angelica!