“Extraordinary! Child, where did you imagine—”
“Don’t be angry, David. You needn’t tell me if you don’t want to—but I know. I’ve seen it in your face too often, these days. Only, I think it’s hard on Anne.”
I decided on another course.
“My dear Molly, Anne isn’t in the slightest doubt as to my feelings towards her. I wish I did love her, sometimes. I don’t. And if I did, I shouldn’t tell her so—just as I was going off to war.”
“Why not?”
“Because a man has no right to take a woman’s heart when it may mean an empty life for the rest of her existence.”
“But why, David? If you men are willing to give your lives, why should we women not have our part of sorrow?”
“Each as he feels: that’s my point of view,” I said. Yet, as I look at it now, I wonder why I said it, for no such compunction had arrested my impulse toward Bernoline. “However, that’s all academic and don’t get it into your romantic little head that I’m not telling you the truth about Anne. Furthermore, she understands.”
She shook her head.
“I’m inclined to shake you!” I said, vexed.