Page:Strange Interlude (1928).djvu/87

Rh

[In his flat voice]

You mean you—

[Then pleadingly]

But not—Darrell?

[With simple surprise]

Ned? No, how could I? The war hadn’t maimed him. There would have been no point in that. But I did with others—oh, four or five or six or seven men, Charlie. I forget—and it doesn’t matter. They were all the same. Count them all as one, and that one a ghost of nothing. That is, to me. They were important to themselves, if I remember rightly. But I forget.

[Thinking in agony]

But why? the dirty little trollop! why?

[In his flat voice]

Why did you do this, Nina?

[With a sad little laugh]

God knows, Charlie! Perhaps I knew at the time but I’ve forgotten. It’s all mixed up. There was a desire to be kind. But it’s horribly hard to give anything, and frightful to receive! And to give love—oneself—not in this world! And men are difficult to please, Charlie. I seemed to feel Gordon standing against a wall with eyes bandaged and these men were a firing squad whose eyes were also bandaged—and only I could see! No, I was the blindest! I would