"Not when I haf any one as nice as you; I never haf yet, though"; she smiled—and her smile was like her speech, slow, confiding—"you stopped because I was sad, others stop because I am gay. I am not fond of men at all. When you know, you are not fond of them."
"Well! You hardly know them at their best, do you? You should see them at the front. By George! they're simply splendid—officers and men, every blessed soul. There's never been anything like it—just one long bit of jolly fine self-sacrifice; it's perfectly amazing."
Turning her blue-grey eyes on him, she answered:
"I expect you are not the last at that. You see in them what you haf in yourself, I think."
"Oh! not a bit—you're quite out. I assure you when we made the attack where I got wounded, there wasn't a single man in my regiment who wasn't an absolute hero. The way they went in—never thinking of themselves—it was simply superb!"
Her teeth came down on her lower lip, and she answered in a queer voice: "It is the same too perhaps with—the enemy."
"Oh yes, I know that."
"Ah! You are not a mean man. How I hate mean men!"
"Oh! they're not mean really—they simply don't understand."
"Oh! you are a baby—a good baby, aren't you?"