"So are all hearts," replied Mrs. Fortescue, "but you are so ridiculously sentimental and lackadaisical about Anita!"
"She is my one ewe lamb," said the Colonel.
Then they went down-stairs together, and the next minute Anita appeared, wearing a gown of white and silver, with a delicious little train, which she managed as well as a seventeen-year-old could manage a train.
In a minute or two the guests began arriving. They were handsome, middle-aged officers and dignified matrons. Broussard was the only young man present, which was understood as a special compliment to him, and Anita was the only young girl in the company.
Broussard greeted the Colonel as coolly as if that unlucky meeting just outside of Lawrence's quarters had not occurred two hours before. And Broussard was a captivating, fellow—this the Colonel admitted to himself, with an inward groan, watching Broussard's graceful figure, his dashing manner, all these externals that dazzle women. The Colonel also saw the color that flooded Anita's face when she took Broussard's arm to lead her in to dinner. At the table, though, Broussard found Anita strangely unlike the Anita he had been steadily falling in love with since he first saw her, three months before, when Colonel Fortescue took command at Fort Blizzard. She was no longer the dreamy, mysterious child, who knew all the stories of the poets, whose affections were all passions, but a self-possessed young lady, who read things in the newspapers about the European war and knew something about aviation records, although she hated aviation.
Broussard, with rage and chagrin in his heart, remembered that Anita had probably seen him standing in the passage-way of Lawrence's quarters, with Mrs. Lawrence's shapely hand on his shoulder. He remained calm and smiling, nevertheless, and exerted to the utmost his power to please. But Anita remained calm and smiling, and maddeningly aloof. Broussard, inwardly cursing himself, made up his mind to have it out with the Colonel the next day about the Lawrence affair.
When dinner was over and the men had come in from the smoking-room, Mrs. Fortescue asked Broussard if he would sing; Neroda was already there to play his accompaniments and Anita, would play the violin obligato.
Broussard was not loth to show his accomplishments and he had a very good will to try the magic of his voice upon Anita, gracious, and obstinate and smiling.
The guests, in a circle in the drawing-room, watched and listened to the group at the piano—Neroda, short and swarthy, with a rancorous voice; Anita, in her blonde beauty, looking like another St. Cecilia, and Broussard, dark and handsome, like Faust, the tempter.
With deep intent Broussard selected the most passionate of all his passionate songs. It asked the old, old question, "I love thee; dost thou love me?" Neroda struck into the accompaniment and Broussard's voice, a tenor, with the strength and feeling of a baritone, took up the song, while the music of Anita's violin delicately threaded the harmonies, ever following and responding to Broussard's voice. All of Anita's coldness vanished at the first strain of the music; Broussard's voice penetrated her heart and inspired her hand. When the song was over and she laid her violin down on the piano she was once more the palpitating, shy enthusiast, the half-child, half-woman who had captivated Broussard at the first glance.