"
Ailsa's expression was wintry. Letty, still smiling out of her
velvet eyes, looked up confidently into Ailsa's face.
"Dear," she said, "I wish you could ever know how nice he is. . . .
But--I don't believe I could explain----"
"Nice? Who? Oh, your trooper!"
"You don't mistake me, do you?" asked the girl, flushing up. "I
only call him so to you. I knew him in New York--and--he is so
much of a man--so entirely good----"
She hesitated, seeing no answering sympathy in Ailsa's face,
sighed, half turned with an unconscious glance at the closed door
of the kitchen.
"What were you saying about--him?" asked Ailsa listlessly.
"Nothing--" said Letty timidly--"only, isn't it odd how matters are
arranged in the army. My poor trooper--a gentleman born--is being
fed in the kitchen; your handsome Captain--none the less gently
born--is at supper in Dr. West's office. . . . They might easily
have been friends in New York. . . . War is so strange, isn't it?"
Ailsa forced a smile; but her eyes remained on the door, behind
which was a man who had held her in his arms. . . . And who might
this girl be who came now to her with tales of Berkley's goodness,
kindness--shy stories of the excellence of the man who had killed
in her the joy of living--had nigh killed more than that? What did
this strange, dark-eyed, dark-haired girl know about his
goodness?--a girl of whom she had never even heard until she saw
her in Dr.
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