Mrs.Fortescue would never see forty again, and her rich hair had a wide streak of silver running from her right temple; but she was the same Betty Beverley of twenty years before.

The Betty Beverleys of this world are dowered with immortal youth and change but little, even under strange stars.
Mrs.Fortescue had never in her life been at the end of her resources for placating men.

She withdrew her arms from about her husband's neck, and running lightly into the drawing-room took the After-Clap from Kettle's arms, and, throwing him pick-a-back on her shoulders, tripped with her beautiful man-child into the Colonel's office.

Mrs.
Fortescue and the baby were the only persons who ever took liberties with Colonel Fortescue.
The baby, charmed with his father's uniform, seized a shoulder strap with one hand and grabbed the Colonel's carefully trimmed mustache with the other, and lifted a pair of laughing eyes, wonderfully like his mother's, into his father's face.

Mrs.Fortescue, at first as demure as any C.O.'s wife in the world, suddenly smiled the radiant smile that began with her eyes and ended with her lips.