Page:The return of the soldier (IA returnofsoldier00west2).pdf/74

 ing in the same hotel, just like that."

"It's a pity you can't remember Kitty. All that a wife should be she's been to you."

He sat forward, warming his palms at the blaze and hunching his shoulders as though there were a draft. His silence compelled me to look at him, and I found his eyes, cold and incredulous and frightened, on me.

"Jenny, is this true?"

"That Kitty's been a good wife?"

"That Kitty is my wife, that I am old, that"—he waved a hand at the altered room—"all this."

"It is all true. She is your wife, and this place is changed, and it's better and jollier in all sorts of ways, believe me, and fifteen years have passed. Why, Chris, can't you see that I have grown old?" My vanity could hardly endure his slow stare, but I kept my fingers clasped on my lap. "You see?"