Sergeant McGillicuddy was a good amateur gardener, and at that very moment, wearing a suit of blue overalls, was digging away industriously. The Sergeant had lost a good deal of his cheerfulness in those later days of winter, but the garden seemed to inspire him, as it did Anita. The girl went up to him and the two were in close conference concerning a bed of cowslips the sergeant was making. Through the open window the sunny air floated, drenched with perfume. Anita was laughing at something the Sergeant said;--they had usually been serious enough while working together in the garden.
Presently Anita came into the drawing-room, carrying in her thin, white skirt, as if it were an apron, a great mass of blossoms. Colonel Fortescue held out a letter to her.
"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."