The gaze of the two women met, for Anita was a woman grown in matters of the heart.  She imagined she saw pity in Mrs. Lawrence’s expression.  Instantly, she began to knit rapidly.  She wished to talk unconcernedly, but the words would not come.  Broussard’s association with the pallid woman before her was a painful mystery to Anita.  Jealousy is a plant that springs from nothing, and grows like Jonah’s gourd in the minds of women.

Anita was too innocent, too rashly confident in the honor of all the other women in the world to think any wrong of the woman before her.  But it was enough that Mrs. Lawrence knew Broussard well, and was in communication with him—­a strange thing between an officer and the wife of a private soldier, even if the soldier be of a station unusual in the ranks.  Ever in Anita’s heart smouldered the joy of the words Broussard had spoken to her under thousands of eyes on that memorable night of the music ride, and the sharp pain that came from Broussard’s saying no more.

In a few minutes the jacket was done, and Anita rose.  It required all her generosity as well as justice to say to Mrs. Lawrence: 

“If I can do anything for you, please let me know.”

“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.