"I thank you," replied Mrs. Lawrence. "You have already done much for me and for Ronald."
Then Anita went out into the dusk, and in her soul was rebellion. Youth was made for joy and she was robbed of her share. Anita was scarcely eighteen and deep-hearted.
In Mrs. Fortescue's room, Anita found Mrs. McGillicuddy, engaged in one of the comfortable chats that always took place between the Colonel's lady and the Sergeant's wife at the After-Clap's bed-time. As Sergeant McGillicuddy kept the Colonel informed of the happenings at the fort, so Mrs. McGillicuddy, who had great qualifications, and would have made a good scout, kept Mrs. Fortescue informed of all the news at the fort, from Major Harlow, the second in command, down to the smallest drummer boy in the regiment. Mrs. Fortescue being nothing if not feminine, she and Mrs. McGillicuddy were "sisters under their skins."
Anita's face was so grave that Mrs. Fortescue said to her tenderly—one is very tender with an only daughter:
"Is anything troubling you, dear?"
"Nothing at all," replied Anita, "I went to see Mrs. Lawrence, as the chaplain asked me, and finished a little jacket she was knitting for her boy. She doesn't seem very strong."
"And I dessay," said Mrs. McGillicuddy, who had held Anita in her arms when the girl was but a day old, "you saw all that cut glass and the rugs, as Mr. Broussard give to Lawrence. Them rugs! They're fit for a general's house. It seems to me it oughter be against the regulations for privates to have such rugs when sergeants' wives has to buy rugs off the bargain counter."
Mrs. McGillicuddy stood stiffly upon her rank as a sergeant's wife and believed in keeping the soldiers' wives where they belonged.
"I don't fancy Mr. Broussard is living in luxury himself just now," said Mrs. Fortescue. And Mrs. McGillicuddy's kind heart, being touched with remorse for having given Broussard a pin prick, hastened to say:
"No, indeed, mum, for McGillicuddy heard Major Harlow readin' a letter from Mr. Broussard, and he says as how he lives on bananas and has got only two shirts, and his striker has to wash one of 'em out every day for Mr. Broussard to wear the next day. McGillicuddy says that Major Harlow says that Mr. Broussard says that he don't mind it a bit, and he's glad to see real service and proud to command the men that is with him, and they behaves splendid."