He had had to tell her
Angela could not and should not be subjected to such restraints as the
sister would have prescribed, but so long as he was the sole victim
he whimsically bore it without vehement protest. "Convert me all you
can, Janet, dear," he said, "but don't try to reform the whole
regiment. It's past praying for."
Now, when other women whispered to her that while Mrs. Plume had been
a belle in St. Louis and Mr. Blakely a young society beau, the
magnitude of their flirtation had well-nigh stopped her marriage, Miss
Wren saw opportunity for her good offices and, so far from avoiding,
she sought the society of the major's brooding wife. She even felt a
twinge of disappointment when the young officer appeared, and after
the initial thirty-six hours under the commander's roof, rarely went
thither at all. She knew her brother disapproved of him, and thought
it to be because of moral, not military, obliquity. She saw with
instant apprehension his quick interest in Angela and the child's
almost unconscious response. With the solemn conviction of the maiden
who, until past the meridian, had never loved, she looked on Angela as
far too young and immature to think of marrying, yet too shallow, vain
and frivolous, too corrupted, in fact, by that pernicious society
school--not to shrink from flirtations that might mean nothing to the
man but would be damnation to the girl.
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