They drifted on in silence. "Say, Tess, you ought to learn to row. It's good exercise. Those girls in California and New York, they play tennis and row and swim as good as the boys. Honest, some of 'em are wonders!"
"Oh, I'm sick of your swell New York friends! Can't you talk about something else?"
He saw that he had blundered without in the least understanding how or why. "All right. What'll we talk about?" In itself a fatal admission.
"About—you." Tessie made it a caress.
"Me? Nothin' to tell about me. I just been drillin' and studyin' and marchin' and readin' some—— Oh, say, what d'you think?"
"What?"
"They been learnin' us—teachin' us, I mean—French. It's the darnedest language! Bread is pain. Can you beat that? If you want to ask for a piece of bread, you say like this: DONNAY MA UN MORSO DOO PANG. See?"
"My!" breathed Tessie.
And within her something was screaming: Oh, my God! Oh, my God! He knows French. And those girls that can row and swim and everything. And me, I don't know anything. Oh, God, what'll I do?
It was as though she could see him slipping away from her, out of her grasp, out of her sight. She had no fear of what might come to him in France. Bullets and bayonets would never hurt Chuck. He'd make it, just as he always made the 7:50 when it seemed as if he was going to miss it sure. He'd make it there and back, all right. But he'd be a different Chuck, while she stayed the same Tessie. Books, travel, French, girls, swell folks——