Colonel Fortescue beamed with pride; no other girl at the post had as much solid information as Anita.
When the guests were gone and Anita was lying wide awake in her little white bed, thinking of Broussard, Colonel Fortescue, in the pride of his heart, was telling Mrs.Fortescue about it, as he smoked his last cigar in his office.
"It was great!" said the Colonel.

"The child knew her subject wonderfully.

She sat there, talking with men who had served in the Philippines, and they said she knew as much as they did." "Broussard is in the Philippines," replied Mrs.Fortescue quietly.
Colonel Fortescue dashed his cigar into the fireplace and remained silent for five minutes.
"At any rate," he said presently, "The child's love affair hasn't made a fool of her.

She is actually learning something from it.

That's where she is so far ahead of most young things of her age." "She will be eighteen next spring," said Mrs.Fortescue.
The mention of Anita's age always made the Colonel cross; so nothing more was said between the father and mother about Anita that night.
But the Colonel yearned over the beloved of his heart, nor did he classify Anita's silent and passionate remembrance of Broussard with the idle fancies of a young girl; it was like Anita herself, of strong fibre.
The winter wore on, and the whirlpool of life surged in the far-distant post, as in the greater centres of life.