There was a note of passion in her voice which brought a pulsing response from Mary.
"It is the only thing that counts, Becky. How silly I am to worry."
Her young husband was coming towards her—flushed and eager, a prince among men, and he was hers!
As he sat down beside her, her hand sought his under the table.
He looked down at her. "Happy, little girl?"
"Very happy, lover."
III
Caroline Paine was having the time of her life. She wore a new dress of thin midnight blue which Randy had bought for her and which was very becoming; her hair was waved and dressed, and she had Major Prime as an attentive listener while she talked of the past and linked it with the present.
"Of course there was a time when the men drank themselves under the tables. Everybody calls them the 'good old times,' but I reckon they were bad old times in some ways, weren't they? There was hot blood, and there were duels. There's no denying it was picturesque, Major, but it was foolish for all that. Men don't settle things now by shooting each other, except in a big way like the war. The last duel was fought by the old fountain out there—one of the Merriweathers met one of the Paines. Merriweather was killed, and the girl died of a broken heart."