Joseph came in just then and Mrs. Lake dropped all unpleasant subjects immediately. She encouraged him and he responded gladly. He infused a quality of ease into the conversation.
“And how’s the—what d’you call it?—the welfare of the city, Miss Fulton?” he asked presently. “Still going strong, what? Fisk been shedding much blood lately?”
“What’s that?” asked Mrs. Lake curiously.
“Oh, great sport, isn’t he, Miss Fulton? Communist, what? Miss Fulton b’nevolently hands round soup and Fisk gets into it, isn’t that it? No, kait sairysly though. I hope you’re getting on. I do immensely admire what you’re doing. I couldn’t do it for m’life. The smell of the f’llers on parade used to quite upset me.”
Mrs. Lake didn’t like that. “He must learn not to say those kind of things,” she thought. “It is dreadfully bad form; but he is a nice boy in many ways; we had better make use of him.”
To Teresa the whole thing was little less than torture. Love of humanity was so alive in her that to have it wounded in sport gave her something of the hopeless misery of a child roughly handled by bigger boys. The fact that they were of her own species made her sense of isolation worse. Affectionate women fear alien sympathies more than force. They also feel it their duty to betray the whereabouts of the thing they love by fighting over it, instead of merely putting it out of range of attack and guarding all approaches as men do.
“You would have smelt just as bad yourself if you had been a private,” she said, blushing and stammering, “it is only just chance that gives you hot baths.”
“Ha! ha!” he laughed heartily. “Of course I should. You’re abs’lutely right; but then I shouldn’t have minded, don’t you see? That’s th’ whole point.”
“How do you know you wouldn’t?” she flamed out. “How do you know they don’t care? They do care. You know nothing about it. You have never talked to them.”
“Teresa, dear,” Susie remonstrated.