“I’ll be your flight commander all summer,” I told the congregation. “You can go now—you two. I want to converse in private with Sergeant Marston.”
The two privates filed out silently. Marston was still standing as if concrete had set in his backbone.
“Sit down, Major,” I told him, and I’ll swear the “Major” just slipped out naturally.
He relaxed, but did not subside on the tool chest next to him. His eyes, which popped out so far they could have been knocked off with a stick, met mine steadily. We had instinctively hated each other, I think, from the first time we met.
“Well, this is a rather peculiar situation, Marston,” I told him as I ignited a cheroot. “The man that tried to break me is now under me.”
“And about to be broken himself,” Marston interrupted me.
His face seemed to me to have changed since the time I had seen him before. He looked as if he’d gone through —— and had become a sullen enemy of life in general. His light blue eyes, staring into mine, were glowing dully. He seemed to be daring me to do my worst as he looked at me.
And all of a sudden I hated myself because I had even considered using my strategic position to get back at him for what he had done to me.
“No, you’re not going to be broken, Marston,” I told him as he stood there like a lion at bay.
He simply looked at me, without saying a word. My particular and peculiar type of beauty did not appeal to him at all, and as for him, I didn’t like anything about him and never had. In a personal sense, I mean.