Forbes smiled dully, and Alice said:
"Mother, you do say the most tactless things!"
"I had set my heart on that love-match," sighed Mrs. Neff.
"Better begin at home," said Alice, with unusual cheer.
Mrs. Neff changed the subject. "We'll get out at our house, if you don't mind, and the man can take you to your hotel."
"That's mighty kind of you," said Forbes. He helped them to alight, promised to call, and re-entered the car.
On his way to the hotel he pondered what Mrs. Neff had said. It cheered him until he realized she was still assuming that he had a respectable income. If she had known the truth she would have thought him as unfit for Persis as she thought Stowe Webb unfit for Alice. She would have approved Persis' theory that such a wedding was impossible.
It is doleful travel that takes one home from an unaccomplished errand—only Forbes was not returning even to his home. His home was as shifty as a Methodist minister's. At present it was a hotel, and after that the army post.
And now those duties which he had dreaded so to resume became in his mind a refuge. He had spent a few wild days pursuing a will-o'-the-wisp of a woman's whim through a moonlit marsh, never sure which turn it would take, sure only that it would not be where he expected it to be.
After such a maddening recreation there was a kind of heaven in the thought of living according to a rigid program. At such an hour a bugle would exclaim and drums would ruffle, and the day's work would begin. At such an hour a roll-call would be due, or a sick-call, or a guard-mount call, or a headquarters call. Certain books were to be inspected and corrected; certain men were to be taught to do certain things exactly so. If there were ever a doubt, the answer was printed in a book, or in an order numbered and dated.