Quill's Window

by George Barr McCutcheon

"Neither. It is an impression, that's all."

He frowned slightly. "I used to smoke a pipe,—in college, you know. Up to my sophomore year. It was supposed to indicate maturity. But I don't believe I'd have the courage to tackle one now, Miss Crown. Not since that little gas experience over there. You see, my throat isn't what it was in those good old freshman days. Pipe smoke,—you may even say tobacco smoke, for heaven only knows what these cigarettes are made of,—pipe smoke is too strong. My throat is so confounded sensitive I—well, I'd probably cough my head off. That beastly gas made a coward of me, I fear. You've no idea what it does to a fellow's throat and lungs. If I live to be a thousand years old, I'll never forget the tortures I went through for weeks,—yes, ages. Every breath was like a knife cutting the very—But what a stupid fool I am! Distressing you with all these wretched details. Please forgive me."

She was looking at him wonderingly. "You are so different from the poor fellows I saw in New York," she said slowly. "I mean the men who had been gassed and shell-shocked. I saw loads of them in the hospitals, you know,—and talked with them. I was always tremendously affected by their silence, their moodiness, their unwillingness to speak of what they had been through. The other men, the ones who had lost legs or arms or even their eyes,—were as a rule cheerful and as chatty as could be,—oh, how my heart used to ache for them,—but the shell-shock men and the men who had been gassed, why, it was impossible to get them to talk about themselves. I have seen some of them since then. They are apparently well and strong, and yet not one word can you get out of them about their sufferings. You are almost unique, Mr. Thane. I am glad you feel disposed to talk about it all. It is a good sign. It—"

"I didn't say much about it at first," he interrupted hurriedly. "Moreover, Miss Crown," he went on, "a lot of those chaps,—the majority of them, in fact,—worked that dodge for all it was worth. It was a deliberate pose with them. They had to act that way or people wouldn't think they'd been hurt at all. Bunk, most of it."

"I don't believe that, Mr. Thane. I saw too many of them. The ones with whom I came in contact certainly were not trying to deceive anybody. They were in a pitiable condition, every last one of them,—pitiable."

"I do not say that all of them were shamming,—but I am convinced that a great many of them were."

"The doctors report that the shell-shock cases—"

"Ah, the doctors!" he broke in, shrugging his shoulders. "They were all jolly good fellows. All you had to do was to even hint that you'd been knocked over by a shell that exploded two hundred yards away and—zip! they'd send you back for repairs. As for myself, the only reason I didn't like to talk about my condition at first was because it hurt my throat and lungs. It wasn't because I was afflicted with this heroic melancholy they talk so much about. I was mighty glad to be alive. I couldn't see anything to mope about,—certainly not after I found out I wasn't going to die."

"I daresay there were others who took it as you did. I wish there could have been more."

He hesitated a moment before speaking again. Then he hazarded the question: