Page:Ernest Hemingway - In Our Time (1925).pdf/91

 was a battalion of arditi quartered in the town. Living in the muddy, rainy town in the winter, the major of the battalion made love to Ag, and she had never known Italians before, and finally wrote to the States that theirs had been only a boy and girl affair. She was sorry, and she knew he would probably not be able to understand, but might some day forgive her, and be grateful to her, and she expected, absolutely unexpectedly, to be married in the spring. She loved him as always, but she realized now it was only a boy and girl love. She hoped he would have a great career, and believed in him absolutely. She knew it was for the best.

The major did not marry her in the spring, or any other time. Ag never got an answer to the letter to Chicago about it. A short time after he contracted gonorrhea from a sales girl in a loop department store riding in a taxicab through Lincoln Park.