Page:Strange Interlude (1928).djvu/56

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[As grief subsides a trifle, her voice is heard, flat and toneless]

Isn’t Mr. Marsden here, Mary?

[She calls]

Charlie!

[Confused—huskily]

In here—I’m in the study, Nina.

[He moves uncertainly toward the door]

[''Comes in and stands just inside the doorway. She is dressed in a nurse’s uniform with cap, a raglan coat over it. She appears older than in the previous scene, her face is pale and much thinner, her cheek bones stand out, her mouth is taut in hard lines of a cynical scorn. Her eyes try to armor her wounded spirit with a defensive stare of disillusionment. Her training has also tended to coarsen her fiber a trifle, to make her insensitive to suffering, to give her the nurse’s professionally callous attitude. In her fight to regain control of her nerves she has over-striven after the cool and efficient poise, but she is really in a more highly strung, disorganized state than ever, although she is now more capable of suppressing and concealing it. She remains strikingly handsome and her physical appeal is enhanced by her pallor and the mysterious suggestion about her of hidden experience. She stares at blankly and speaks in queer flat tones'']

Hello, Charlie. He’s dead, Mary says.