Mischievous reflections of the doctrine the Englishman had startled her with the night before flickered in her mind, as they drove from the door. Was this part of "the big red game," not being accommodating, nor so very polite? The streets were still wet with early fog, and, turning in at the Presidio gate, the cypresses dripped dankly on their heads, and hung out cobwebs pearled with dew. She was sure, even under their dripping, that the "damnable dust" was alive.

Down the broad slopes that were swept by the drive all was green to the water's edge. The long line of barracks, the officers' quarters, the great parade-ground, set in the flat land between hills and bay, looked like a child's toy, pretty and little. They heard the note of a bugle, thin and silver clear, and they could see the tiny figures mustering; but in her preoccupation it did not occur to Flora that they were arriving just in time for parade. But when the carriage had crossed the viaduct, and swung them past the acacias, and around the last white curve into the white dust of the parade-ground, Clara turned, as if with a fresh idea."Wouldn't you like to stop and watch it?" "Why, yes," Flora assented. The brilliance of light and color, the precision of movement, the sound of the brasses under the open sky were an intermezzo in harmony with her spirited mood.

The carriage stopped under the scanty shadow of trees that bordered the walk to the officers' quarters. Clara, book in hand, alertly rose. "I'll just run up to the Purdies' and leave this," she said.

"Then she really did want to be rid of me," Flora mused, as she watched the brisk back moving away; "and how beautifully she has done it!" Her eyes followed Clara's little figure retreating up the neat and narrow boardwalk, to where it disappeared in the overarching depths of eucalyptus trees. Further on, beyond the trees, two figures, smaller than Clara's in their greater distance, were coming down. Flora almost grinned as she recognized the large linen umbrella that Mrs. Purdie invariably carried when abroad in the reservation, and presently the trim and bounding figure of Mrs. Purdie herself, under it. The Purdies were coming down to parade--at least Mrs. Purdie was. But the tall figure beside her--that was not the major. She took up her lorgnon. It was--no, it could not be--yet surely it was Harry! Lazy Harry, up and out, and squiring Mrs. Purdie to the review at half-past ten in the morning! "Are we all mad?" Flora thought.

The three little figures, the one going up, the two coming down, touched opposite fringes of the grove--disappeared within it. On which side would they come out 

 Prev. P 26/210 next