He stared at her, forgetting Tira.
"Responsibility?" he repeated. "What responsibility is there I don't want to take—about you?"
"You don't want me to be a woman," said Nan. "You want me to be a little girl, always adoring you, just enough, not too much. You've been adored enough by women, Rookie."
They both knew she was talking in a hidden language. It was not women she meant; it was Aunt Anne.
"But," said she, persisting, "I'm quite grown up. I've been in the War, just as deep as you have, as deep as Dick. I've taken it all at a gulp—the whole business, I mean, life, things as they are. I couldn't any more go back to the Victorian striped candy state of mind I was taught to pattern by than you could yourself."
"You let the Victorians alone," growled Raven. "Much you know about 'em."
"They were darlings," said Nan. "They had more brains, any ten of 'em, than a million of us put together. But it does happen to be true they didn't see what human nature is, under the skin. We do. We've scratched it and we know. It's a horrible sight, Rookie."
"What is it?" said Raven. "What is under the skin?"
Nan considered.
"Well," she said finally, "there's something savage. Not strong, splendid savage, you know, but pretending to be big Injun and not fetching it. Wearing red blankets, and whooping, and tearing raw meat. O Rookie, how do folks talk? I can't, even to you. But the world isn't—well, it isn't as nice as I thought it: not so clean. You ought to know. You don't like it either."