And then, of course, there were Wickham and Bright, the general's other aides, who were famous entertainers, and then, above all, perhaps--pitted for the first time against all the soldier beaux of Arizona--there was the general's latest acquisition, handsome, graceful, charming Hal Willett, who had, with characteristic modesty, made no mention of the fact that he was an engaged man until Mrs. Stannard's letter to Mrs. Crook told all about it, and we, who knew and loved Mrs. Stannard, knew just why she wrote, and never blamed her, as did Willett.
The very night of the very day it came he was dancing gloriously with, and had been saying things to, Evelyn Darrah that she one day earlier had listened to with bated breath. Now his mustache swept her pretty ear as he lowered his head in the midst of the loveliest "glide," and murmured something more, whereat she had suddenly swung herself out of the circle of his arm, swept him a stately courtesy and fairly startled--_stunned_ him by the question: "Isn't that just a little high--for a gentleman's game, Mr. Willett?"
The very words were enough to amaze him! "What on earth do you mean?" he demanded, as soon as he recovered self-control.
"I mean," said she, straightening to her full height again, and looking him fairly in the eyes, "that for an engaged man you have exceeded, or, as you would say, 'raised the limit.'"
There were dozens dancing, chatting, laughing about them, and some few watching, for his attentions, first to pretty Mrs. Dennis, and then the devotions by means of which he had swept aside all other suitors of Evelyn Darrah, had set all tongues to wagging. "The old Willett over again," said Bright, who had known him at the Point. Only that day had the mail come up from Almy and McDowell, and he ought to have known what it would betray. There must have been other letters--men's letters--for at mess there had been sly allusions to the fluctuations of fortune, the comparative values of "straights" and "pats," and this girl had turned and taunted him with the very words of that infernal, and he had hoped, forgotten game. Moreover, she, a brilliant, beautiful, practised woman of society, by no means the delicate and sensitive little desert flower whose worship he had won so readily, had dared to fence with him, had interested, piqued, fascinated, and now wellnigh bewitched him. He was not yet well of his wounds by any manner of means. He was still weak--far too weak to ride or climb or do much in the way of walking, but he could look, and be most interesting lolling in an invalid chair. Women had come and ministered to him in his convalescence, and pretty Mrs. Dennis had made quite a fool of herself, said certain elders, but when it came to cutting in for Evelyn Darrah, Willett had had to be up and doing, even finally, for her and her alone, as he murmured, daring to dance. There was nothing else he did so supremely well, and men and women watched them enviously, perhaps, yet delightedly, and men and women were watching now as he followed her to her seat, dropped to the one beside her, and bent absorbedly over her again, pale, agitated, and they saw her speaking, saw him vehemently pleading, saw him prevailing, for his pallor and emotion lent force to his impassioned words. Practised belle, coquette, flirt she might have been, but the woman is rare indeed who can utterly disbelieve, in face of such a combination, that she at least is loved. Stella's impassioned letters once lay in unbroken packages upon his mantel. Another star had risen and set, and sent its missives only to the ashes of his grate, and now this very night, hidden in his desk, lay long, close-written, criss-crossed, exquisite pages, the outpourings of a young and guileless and glorious nature, and they, too, lay, as did that early Stella's, unread, unheeded, almost undesired, for the man was inflamed by this dauntless woman's defiance of him, and the devil in him was urging: woo her, win her, conquer her, _crush_ her, come what may!