'Don't,' said Terry gently. 'Don't think like that about it; it's not the way. Don't think of Paul, except that he got out of it quicker than most people, and is safe now from any more of it. One's got to keep on thinking of that, whenever any of them slip up.... I hoped you'd none of you ever know.... That bungling ass.... Alix, don't: it was such a short time he had of it....'
Alix gasped, her hands pressed to her choked throat, 'It seemed hundreds of years, to him. Hundreds and hundreds of years, of being hurt like that, hurt more than he could bear, till he had to end it.... He was such a little boy, Terry ... he minded things so much....'
'The thing is,' Terry repeated, frowning, and prodding the mud in the road with his stick, 'not to think. Not to imagine. Not to remember.... It's over, don't you see, for Paul. He's clean out of it.... It's a score for him really, as he was like that and did mind so much.'
'It would be easier,' said Alix presently, husky and strangled, 'if he hadn't liked things so much too; if he hadn't been so awfully happy; if he hadn't so loved being alive.... It isn't a score for him to lose all the rest of his life, that he might have had afterwards.'
'No,' Terry agreed, sadly. 'It isn't. It's rotten luck, that is. Simply rotten. That's one of the most sickening things about this whole show, the way people are doing that.... But there's one thing about Paul, Alix; if he'd come through it he'd have kept on remembering all the things one tries to forget. More than most people, I mean. He was that sort. Lots of people don't mind so much, and can get things out of their heads when they aren't actually seeing them. I can, pretty well, you know. I think about other things, and don't worry, and eat and sleep like a prize-fighter. A chap like Ingram's all right, too; lots of men are. (Though what I suppose Ingram would call his brain seems to have gone pretty well to pot to-day. My word, I shall let him hear about that this evening.) But Paul—Paul would have minded awfully always; it might have spoilt his life a bit, you know.... And worse things might have happened to him, too; he might have been taken prisoner.... Paul,' he added slowly—'Paul is better off than lots of men.'
Alix was staring at him now with wide, frightened eyes.
'I say, Terry,' she said hoarsely, 'what—what on earth are we to do about it all? It—it's going on now—this moment.... I've tried so hard not to let it come near ... and now ... now....' She was cold and shaking with terror.
'Now you'd better go on trying,' Terry suggested, and looked at his watch. 'Thinking's no good, anyhow.... We ought to hit off the 3.15 with any luck. Are you going to be sick any more, by the way?'
'I can never tell, till just beforehand,' said Alix gloomily. 'But I wouldn't be much surprised.'
That was a sad thing about the Sandomirs: when they began to be sick it often took them quite a long time to leave off. It was most unfortunate, and they got it from their father, who had sometimes been taken that way on public platforms.