His arm went around her. "It is enough that we--met----"
Becky was also at her mirror at that moment. She had dressed carefully in silver and white with her pearls and silver slippers. Louise came in and looked at her. "I haven't any grand and gorgeous things, you know. And I fancy your Mrs. Prime will be rather gorgeous."
"It suits her," said Becky, "but after this she is going to be different." She told Louise about the ranch and the linen frocks and the frilled aprons. "She is going to make herself over. I wonder if it will be a success."
"It doesn't fit in with my theories," said Louise. "I think it is much better if people marry each other ready-made."
Becky turned from her mirror. "Louise," she said, "does anything ever fit in with a woman's theories when she falls in love?"
"One shouldn't fall in love," Louise said, serenely, "they should walk squarely into it. That's what I shall do, when I get ready to marry---- But I shall love Archibald as long as the good Lord will let me----"
She was trying to say it lightly, but a quiver of her voice betrayed her.
"Louise," Becky said, "what's the matter with Archibald? Is anything really the matter?"
Louise began to cry. "Archie saw the doctor to-day, and he won't promise anything--I made Arch tell me----"
"Of course if he takes good care of himself, it may not be for years. You mustn't let him know that I told you, Becky. But I had to tell somebody. I've kept it all bottled up as if I were a stone image. And I'm not a stone image, and he's all I have."
She dabbed her eyes with a futile handkerchief. The tears dripped. "I must stop," she kept saying, "I shall look like a fright for dinner----"
But at dinner she showed no signs of her agitation. She had used powder and rouge with deft touches. She had followed Becky's example and wore white, a crisp organdie, with a high blue sash. With her bobbed hair and pink cheeks she was not unlike a painted doll. She carried a little blue fan with lacquered sticks, and she tapped the table as she talked to Major Prime. The tapping was the only sign of her inner agitation.
The Admiral's table that night seemed to Becky a circle of sinister meaning. There was Archibald condemned to die--while youth still beat in his veins---- There was Louise, who must go on without him. There was the Admiral--the last of a vanished company; there was the Major, whose life for four years had held--horrors. There was Madge, radiant to-night in the love of her husband, as she had perhaps once been radiant for Dalton.