"For France."
It was cooler now, at least her face was, and she got up and switched the light.
"I wish I might go, too," she told him. "But I lack the training to be nurse and the means to be vivandière—canteener, I think they call it." She hesitated and added, "Shall I see you before you go?"
But now from the phonograph in the neighbourly flat, the Non te scordar drifted, sung nobly by some fat tenor who probably loathed it.
Lennox, who had risen with her, asked: "May I come to-morrow?"
The aria enveloped them and for a moment Cassy trilled in.
"Perhaps to-morrow you will sing for me," he continued.
"Yes, I'll sing."
Later, in the black room on the white bed, the fat tenor's tuneful prayer floated just above her. Cassy repeated the words and told herself she was silly. She may have been, but also she was tired. She knew it and for a moment wondered why. Painted hours dancing to jewelled harps are not to be sneezed at. But when they are not yours, when you have really no right to them, it is not fatiguing to say so. A gesture does not fatigue. It is certainly taxing to go to a greasy office, sign your name and receive a cheque. Taxing but endurable. It is not that that does you up. It is argument that tires you, particularly when there is no need for any and you are forced to turn yourself inside out. How fortunate it was, though, that the room had been dark! In the balm of that, sleep took her.
The next day she had many things to do and succeeded in botching most of them. I have no mind for anything, she decided. What is the matter with me? But, at least, when at last she opened the door for him, there was nothing amiss with her appearance.