The book had changed hands, together, evidently, with several explanations, and Mrs. Purdie, with her foot on the carriage step, was ready to make one of these over again.
"The major'll be so sorry. He's gone in town. It's so unusual for him to get off at this hour, but he said he had to catch a man. As Mrs. Britton and I were saying, he's likely to be very busy until this dreadful affair is straightened out. If you can only wait a little longer, Mr. Cressy," she went on, "I am expecting him every moment."
"Oh, it's of no importance," said Harry, but he looked at his watch with a fold between his brows, and then at the car that was coming in.
"Well, at least, you'll have time to see the parade," said Mrs. Purdie. "I always think it's a pretty sight, though most of the women get tired of it."
Clara's face showed that she belonged to the latter class; but Flora, too keenly attuned to sounds and sights not to be swayed by outward circumstances, was content for the time to watch, in the cloud of dust, the wheeling platoons and rhythmic columns.
Yet through all—even when she was not looking at him—she was aware of Harry's restlessness, of his impatience; and as the last company swung barrackward, and the cloud began to settle over the empty field, he snapped his watch-case smartly, and remarked, "Still no major."
"Why, there he is now!" Mrs. Purdie screamed, pointing across the parade-ground.
Flora looked. Half-way down on the adjoining side of the parallelogram, back toward her, the redoubtable Kerr was standing. She recognized him on the instant, as if he were the most familiar figure in her life. Yet she was more surprised to see him here than she had been to see Harry. She felt inclined to rub her eyes. It took a moment for her to realize that his companion was indeed Major Purdie.
The major had recognized his wife's signaling umbrella. Now he turned toward it, but Kerr, with a quick motion of hand toward hat, turned in the opposite direction. In her mind Flora was with the major who ran after him. The two men stood for a little, expostulating. Then both walked toward the landau and the linen umbrella.
The carriage group waited, watching with flagging conversation, which finally fell into silence. But the two approaching strolled easily and talked. Even in cold daylight Kerr still gave Flora the impression that the open was not big enough to hold him, but she saw a difference in his mood, a graver eye, a colder mouth, and when he finally greeted them, a manner that was brusk. It showed uncivil beside the major's urbanity.