"How did you manage the C. O.?" asked Beverley of Broussard, as they exchanged confidences in the smoking-room.
"I sang to him, like David did to Saul, and got the evil spirit out of him. You ought to have seen him, sitting before the fire, grinding his teeth with the pain of his ankle, and listening to 'Love's Old Sweet Song.' I gave him a genteel suffering of sentimental songs, I can tell you, and never cracked a smile, and no more did the old man"--this being the unofficial title of all commanding officers.
"Do you think it would work on Major Harlow?" anxiously inquired Beverley, "because this afternoon Sally and I----"
Here the conference was reduced to whispers, as plans were made to conquer Major Harlow. Only daughters are highly prized by doting fathers.
A broken ankle at fifty does not heal in a day, and until Christmas Eve Colonel Fortescue was a prisoner in his chair, doing his administrative work; and when that was done being cheered and soothed by the tenderness in which he had been lapped since the day when, as a young lieutenant, he married Betty Beverley in an old Virginia church. Never was anything seen like Anita's devotion to her father. It seemed as if she were never out of sound and reach of him and gave up all the merry-making of the Christmas time to be with him. This prevented Broussard from seeing Anita very often, and never alone, but they had entered the Happy Valley together, and basked in the delicate joy of love unspoken, but not unfelt. Anita knew that Broussard was only biding his time, and Broussard knew that Anita was waiting, in smiling silence. The Colonel wrote Broussard a very handsome note of thanks and Mrs. Fortescue greeted him with grateful thanks. Then, Christmas was coming, the claims of the After-Clap and the eight McGillicuddys became insistent. Broussard did not forget the prisoner in the grim military prison, nor the woman so faithful to the prisoner. Sergeant McGillicuddy spent a small fortune in such comforts as Lawrence was allowed to receive at Christmas time, and his knotty, weather-beaten face grew positively cheerful over the way Lawrence was really reforming.
Broussard knew that Anita would not come to the Christmas Eve ball, because in the evening her father liked her to read to him. But Broussard went to the ball, and for the first time found a Christmas ball dull. Flowers were scarce at Fort Blizzard, but by the expenditure of much time and money Broussard succeeded in getting a great box of fresh white roses for Anita on Christmas Day.