Page:The return of the soldier (IA returnofsoldier00west2).pdf/102

 across her tears, her damp skin, her rough, bagging overall. "I'm hot. I've been baking. You can't get a girl nowadays that understands the baking." Her gaze became remote and tender, and she said in a manner that was at once argumentative and narrative, as though she were telling the whole story to a neighbor over the garden wall: "I suppose I ought to say that he isn't right in his head, and that I'm married, so we'd better not meet; but, oh," she cried, and I felt as though, after much fumbling with damp matches and many doubts as to whether there was any oil in the wick, I had lit the lamp at last, "I want to see him so! It's wrong, I know it's wrong, but I am so glad Chris wants to see me, too!"

"You'll do him good." I found myself raising my voice to the pitch she had suddenly attained as though to keep her at it. "Come now!"

She dipped suddenly to compassion.