"Oh! That's it, of course," chimed in Mrs. Brenham at once. "The
Johnsons have a girl--Winnie they call her--who is perpetually gadding
about, and I warrant it was she. Come! Let us see the scrap-book."

And so the party returned to the business of the evening and were soon
absorbed in the pages of McLean's collection. He had many a question to
answer, and was kept from the seat he longed to take, by Nellie
Bayard's side. Where three or four women are gathered together over an
album of photographs or a scrap-book of which he is the owner, no man
need hope to escape for so much as an instant. Yet she was watching him
and wondering at what she saw,--the effort it cost him to pay attention
to their simplest question--the evident distraction that had seized
upon him.

By and by tattoo sounded. The major went out with McLean to receive the
reports, and when they returned Mr. Hatton came too.

"Where have you been, Mr. Hatton?" asked Mrs. Miller. "We've been
looking for you all the evening, and wouldn't have a bite or a glass of
wine until you came in."

"Over at the Gordons'. They are having a little gathering too, mostly
of the refugees,--regular hen convention. I was the only man there for
over an hour."

"Who all were there?" inquired the hostess--her Southern birth and her
woman's interest in the goings-on of the garrison manifesting
themselves at one and the same time.

"Oh, about a dozen, all told," answered Mr. Hatton. "Mrs. Bruce and
Jeannie, Mrs. Forrest, Mrs. Post, the Gordon girls, Mrs. Wells, and
finally Miss Forrest. The little parlor was packed like a ration-can by
nine o'clock, and I was glad to slip away at first call."

"A likely statement in view of the fact that Jeannie Bruce was there."

"Fact, though!" answered Hatton, with a knowing look on his handsome
face. He did not want to say it was because Jeannie Bruce went home at
"first call" and that he escorted her.

McLean would be sure to understand that point, however, thought Mr.
Hatton to himself, and to obviate the possibility of his mischievously
suggesting that solution of the matter it might be well to tip him a
wink. Looking around in search of his chum, Mr. Hatton was surprised at
the odd and wretched expression on McLean's face. The tall young
subaltern had seated himself at last by Nellie Bayard's side, but
instead of devoting himself to her, as was to have been expected, he
was staring with white face at Hatton and drinking in every