“Mrs. Colonel now, but Dick always,” said the lady, with immediate comradery.  “Do you know my husband?”

“I should think so!” said Bellingham; and a talk of common interest and mutual reminiscence sprang up between them.  Bellingham graphically depicted his meeting with Colonel Frobisher the last time he was out on the Plains, and Mrs. Frobisher and Miss Wrayne discovered to their great satisfaction that he was the brother of Mrs. Stephen Blake, of Omaba, who had come out to the fort once with her husband, and captured the garrison, as they said.  Mrs. Frobisher accounted for her present separation from her husband, and said she had come on for a while to be with her father and sister, who both needed more looking after than the Indians.  Her father had left the army, and was building railroads.

Miss Wrayne, when she was not appealed to for confirmation or recollection by her sister, was having a lively talk with Corey and Mrs. Brinkley; she seemed to enter into their humour; and no one paid much attention to Dan Mavering.  He hung upon the outskirts of the little group; proffering unrequited sympathy and applause; and at last he murmured something about having to go back to some friends, and took himself off.  Mrs. Frobisher and Miss Wrayne let him go with a certain shade—­the lightest, and yet evident—­of not wholly satisfied pique:  women know how to accept a reparation on account, and without giving a receipt in full.

Mrs. Brinkley gave him her hand with an effect of compassionate intelligence and appreciation of the sacrifice he must have made in leaving Alice.  “May I congratulate you?” she murmured.

“Oh yes, indeed; thank you, Mrs. Brinkley,” he gushed tremulously; and he pressed her hand hard, and clung to it, as if he would like to take her with him.

Neither of the older men noticed his going.  They were both taken in their elderly way with these two handsome young women, and they professed regret—­Bellingham that his mother was not there, and Corey that neither his wife nor daughters had come, whom they might otherwise have introduced.  They did not offer to share their acquaintance with any one else, but they made the most of it themselves, as if knowing a good thing when they had it.  Their devotion to Mrs. Frobisher and her sister heightened the curiosity of such people as noticed it, but it would be wrong to say that it moved any in that self-limited company with a strong wish to know the ladies.  The time comes to every man, no matter how great a power he may be in society, when the general social opinion retires him for senility, and this time had come for Bromfield Corey.  He could no longer make or mar any success; and Charles Bellingham was so notoriously amiable, so deeply compromised by his inveterate habit of liking nearly every one, that his notice could not distinguish or advantage a newcomer.

He and Corey took the ladies down to supper.  Mrs. Brinkley saw them there together, and a little later she saw old Corey wander off; forgetful of Miss Wrayne.  She saw Dan Mavering, but not the Pasmers, and then, when Corey forgot Miss Wrayne, she saw Dan, forlorn and bewildered looking, approach the girl, and offer her his arm for the return to the drawing-room; she took it with a bright, cold smile, making white rings of ironical deprecation around the pupils of her eyes.