Page:The return of the soldier (IA returnofsoldier00west2).pdf/97

 not as you think of her. She's old, Chris. She isn't beautiful any longer. She's drearily married. She's seamed and scored and ravaged by squalid circumstances. You can't love her when you see her."

"Didn't I tell you last night," he said, "that that doesn't matter?" He dipped his oar to a stroke that sent him away from me. "Bring her soon. I shall wait for her down here."

Wealdstone is not, in its way, a bad place; it lies in the lap of open country, and at the end of every street rise the green hills of Harrow and the spires of Harrow School. But all the streets are long and red and freely articulated with railway arches, and factories spoil the skyline with red, angular chimneys, and in front of the shops stood little women with backs ridged by cheap stays, who tapped their upper lips with their forefingers and made other feeble, doubtful gestures, as