“Paying my bills! That's not all the truth, either. I'll tell you, Clay. I just got sick of it all. When Chris left I had a chance to burn my bridges and I burned them. The same people, the same talk, the same food, the same days filled with the same silly things that took all my time and gave me nothing.”
“How long had you been feeling like that?”
“I don't know. Ever since the war, I suppose. I just got to thinking—”
Her voice trailed off.
“I have some of Chris's Scotch, if you want a high-ball.”
“Thanks, no. Audrey, do you hear from Chris?”
“Yes. He's in a dangerous place now, and sometimes at night—I suppose I did force him, in a way. He was doing no good here, and I thought he would find himself over there. But I didn't send him. He—-Tell me about making shells.”
He was a little bit disappointed. Evidently she did not depend on him enough to tell him Chris's story. But again, she was being loyal to Chris.
He told her about the mill, phrasing his explanation in the simplest language; the presses drilling on white-hot metal; the great anvils; the forge; the machine-shop, with its lathes, where the rough surfaces of the shells were first rough-turned and then machined to the most exact measurements. And finding her interested, he told her of England's women workers, in their khaki-colored overalls and caps, and of the convent-like silence and lack of movement in the filling-sheds, where one entered with rubber-shod feet, and the women, silent and intent, sat all day and all night, with queer veils over their faces, filling shells with the death load.
Audrey listened, her hands clasped behind her head.