“This was enclosed in a letter to me from Mr. Broussard,” said the Colonel.

[Illustration:  “This was enclosed in a letter to me from Mr. Broussard,” said the Colonel.]

Anita, although eighteen years old that day, acted like a child.  She dropped the corners of her skirt and the flowers fell to the floor.  One moment she stood like a bird poised for flight, and then taking the letter, tripped out of the room and up the stairs.

Both Colonel and Mrs. Fortescue in the still May afternoon heard her turn the key in the lock of her little rose-colored room.

Mrs. Fortescue gathered up the blossoms, the Colonel with moody eyes looking down.

“Oh, the jealousy of fathers,” said Mrs. Fortescue, after a minute.  “You think we mothers are jealous, but it is nothing compared with the jealousy of fatherhood.  I have already made up my mind to be all graciousness and kindness to Beverley’s future wife, but you have already made up your mind to hate your future son-in-law, whoever he may be.”

“How can a man love the man who robs him of his child?  That’s what actually happens,” replied Colonel Fortescue.

“Then the only thing you can do,” replied Mrs. Fortescue, “is to concentrate all of your love upon your wife, for then you have no other man for a rival.”

Colonel Fortescue agreed to this proposition, and also that his objections to Broussard were purely fanciful and that he would contrive to pick flaws in any man to whom Anita was inclined.

“But she thinks and dreams too much about Broussard,” said the Colonel.  “Probably he looks upon her as a pretty child, just as Conway does.”

“One can’t control the thoughts and dreams of youth,” replied Mrs. Fortescue, “Anita must study the lesson-book of life and love like other women.”

“Did you see her face when I gave her the note?” asked Colonel Fortescue.

“You are an old goose,” was all the reply Mrs. Fortescue would make to this question.

Locked in her own room, Anita read her precious note.  It was very short and perfectly conventional, thanking her for writing to him for Mrs. Lawrence.  Broussard knew of Lawrence being among the missing men.

“Lawrence, as you may have heard,” said the letter, “was a playmate of mine in my boyhood and, although he has had hard luck, I have a deep interest in him and his wife and child.”

Then came a sentence that, to Anita, contained a sweet and hidden meaning:  “Although Gamechick is no longer mine, I shall always love the horse because of something that happened last Christmas at the music ride.”

Anita was late for dinner that evening, and at the table, as she took her lace handkerchief from the bosom of her little blue evening gown, Broussard’s note came out with the handkerchief, and fell upon the floor.  Her father and mother in kindness looked away, but Kettle, with well-meant but indiscreet good will, picked the letter up, saying: