Miss Parmalee, seating herself so that some of her mouse-tinted draperies almost touched the face of Dwight’s companion, unhooked a fan from her girdle and began softly fanning Colonel Starbuck. “The doctor won’t be long,” she said, in low, cooing tones, after a little; “do you feel easier now?”
“I am rather dizzy still, and a little faint,” replied the Colonel, languorously. “That fanning is so delicious though, that I’m really very happy. At least I would be if I weren’t nervous about you. You have been through such tremendous exertions all day—out in the sun, amid all these horrid sights and this infernal roar—without a parasol, too. Are you quite sure it has not been too much for you?”
“You are always so thoughtful of others, dear Colonel Starbuck,” murmured Miss Julia, reducing the fanning to a gentle, measured movement, and fixing her lustrous eyes pensively upon the clouds above the horizon. “You never think of yourself!”
“Only to think how happy my fate is, to be rescued and nursed by an angel,” sighed the Colonel.
A smile of gentle deprecation played upon Miss Julia’s red lips, and imparted to her eyes the expression they would wear if they had been gazing upon a tenderly entrancing vision in the sky. Then, all at once; she gave a little start of aroused attention, looked puzzled, and after a moment’s pause bent her head over close to the Colonel’s.
“The man behind me has taken tight hold of my dress,” she whispered, hurriedly. “I don’t want to turn around, but can you see him? He isn’t having a fit or anything, is he?”
Colonel Starbuck lifted himself a trifle, and looked across. “No,” he whispered in return, “he appears to be asleep. Probably he is dreaming. He is a corporal—some infantry regiment. They do manage to get so—what shall I say—so unwashed! Shall I move his hand for you?”
Miss Julia shook her head, with an arch little half smile.
“No, poor man,” she murmured. “It gives me almost a sense of the romantic. Perhaps he is dreaming of home—of some one dear to him. Corporals do have their romances, you know, as well as—”
“As well as colonels,” the staff officer playfully finished the sentence for her. “Well, I congratulate him, if his is a thousandth part as joyful as mine.”