At my words Marguerite blushed prettily. "I know you do not quite understand," she said, "but you see I am rather peculiarly situated. I cannot go out much, and I can have no girl friends here, and no men either except those who are in this little group who know of our books. And they, you see, are all rather old, mostly staff officers like the doctor himself, and Col. Hellar. You rank quite as well as some of the others, but you are ever so much younger. That is why the doctor thinks you are so wonderful--I mean because you have risen so high at so early an age--but perhaps I think you are rather wonderful just because you are young. Is it not natural for young people to want friends of their own age?"
"It is," I replied with ill-concealed sarcasm.
"Why do you speak like that?" asked Marguerite in pained surprise.
"Because a burnt child dreads the fire."
"I do not understand," she said, a puzzled look in her eyes. "How could a child be burned by a fire since it could never approach one. They only have fires in the smelting furnaces, and children could never go near them."
Despite my bitter mood I smiled as I said: "It is just a figure of speech that I got out of an old book. It means that when one is hurt by something he does not want to be hurt in the same way again. You remember what you said to me in the café about looking up the girl who played the innocent rôle? I did look her up, and you were right about it. She has been, here three years and has a score of lovers."
"And you dropped her?"
"Of course I dropped her."
"And you have not found another?"
"No, and I do not want another, and I had not made love to this girl either, as you think I had; perhaps I would have done so, but thanks to you I was warned in time. I may be even younger than you think I am, young at least in experience with the free women of Berlin. This is the second apartment I have ever been in on this level."