She gave a kind “good-evening” to the people in the room and then approached the old woman. “How are you, dear granny?”
The venerable knitter was in a bad frame of mind, and at first would vouchsafe no answer, but pretended to be greatly occupied with picking up a dropped stitch. In response to another appeal she said irritably that she was “cruel poorly,” and there was “death in the wind.”
“Draw the curtain behind granny,” said Stargarde, motioning one of the children to a window. “She doesn’t feel well. What can we do to cheer her?”
“Make some sweet stuff,” said Judy, who was philosophically inspecting the drawn and crabbed face. “That[“That] will tickle her palate—and her vanity too," in a lower key.
“Happy thought!” said Stargarde. “Dick and Mary, will you go to my rooms and get a saucepan?”
Ten minutes later a pot of candy simmered on the coals sending out a fragrant cloud of steam that the old woman sniffed appreciatively.
Soon other people began to come in—more soldiers and more girls, happy in the knowledge that they might carry on legitimate love-making in shadowy corners under Stargarde’s vigilant but sympathetic eye.
The boys of the Pavilion took turns at doorkeeping, for the kitchen was kept open at all hours. This evening a small red-eyed lad officiated, and to his shrill remarks Vivienne and Judy listened in concealed amusement.
“You can’t come in,” he said abruptly to a lad of his own size who was shouldering his way past him.
“Why not?” fiercely; “you ain’t Miss Turner.”