"Yes," ventured Letty, smiling; "he is escort to—your Captain."
Ailsa's expression was wintry. Letty, still smiling out of her velvet eyes, looked up confidently into Ailsa's face.
"Dear," she said, "I wish you could ever know how nice he is. . . .
But—I don't believe I could explain——"
"Nice? Who? Oh, your trooper!"
"You don't mistake me, do you?" asked the girl, flushing up. "I only call him so to you. I knew him in New York—and—he is so much of a man—so entirely good——"
She hesitated, seeing no answering sympathy in Ailsa's face, sighed, half turned with an unconscious glance at the closed door of the kitchen.
"What were you saying about—him?" asked Ailsa listlessly.
"Nothing—" said Letty timidly—"only, isn't it odd how matters are arranged in the army. My poor trooper—a gentleman born—is being fed in the kitchen; your handsome Captain—none the less gently born—is at supper in Dr. West's office. . . . They might easily have been friends in New York. . . . War is so strange, isn't it?"
Ailsa forced a smile; but her eyes remained on the door, behind which was a man who had held her in his arms. . . . And who might this girl be who came now to her with tales of Berkley's goodness, kindness—shy stories of the excellence of the man who had killed in her the joy of living—had nigh killed more than that? What did this strange, dark-eyed, dark-haired girl know about his goodness?—a girl of whom she had never even heard until she saw her in Dr. Benton's office!
And all the while she stood looking at the closed door, thinking, thinking.