Millicent answered her truthfully. "Because I am bad, not good, and I loved him with the only kind of love I know. It swept aside all scruples. You can't judge—try to believe that—you can't begin to judge. I lived for conquest and men's admiration, and now I have lost both."
Margaret felt humbled to the dust. Her judgment had been so crude, so narrow. She realized that the woman before her left her far behind in the matter of vitality, passion and self-criticism. Her energy and vitality demanded an outlet, an object.
"Don't feel like that," she said gently. "Your looks will come back. Do let me see your face. It is early days yet—the marks will disappear, grow fainter. It is only one year—give it time, forget all about it in hard work, and while you are working. Nature will be working too."
"No, no!" Millicent cried. "Never! I am going to fly from my friends—I am going to hide myself."
Margaret had attempted to raise her thick veil, but Millicent refused to let her. Instead, she threw another thickness of it over her face. Her pride could not stand even Margaret's pity and comforting words.
"I am humbled enough as it is," she said. "Don't do that."
"I didn't want to humble you," Margaret said. "I only thought, and I do still think, that you are exaggerating the change in your appearance. One sees every little thing about oneself so clearly. I know how a wee spot seems like a Vesuvius when it is on one's nose. With smallpox the marks do get more and more invisible."
"No, my looks will never come back," Millicent said miserably. "And for a woman like me, when her looks are gone, what is there left?"
"Work," Margaret said. "The war will make you forget all about personal things—it will, really. Life is different now. If you will only take up some war-work—and I know you will, for every able-bodied woman in England is working at something; every superfluous woman has become a thing of value—life will be completely changed. There is only one idea, one aim for us all—to win the war. You must do your bit. It is just our 'bit' that keeps us sane, for without it we should have time to think. We women must not think, we must work."
"But what could I do?"