“I know I’m not very much to love,” he pleaded. “I’m poor and obscure—I’m not good looking—”
“Oh, it isn’t that!” she cried, “Oh, no, no! Why should I think about such things? You are a comrade!”
Peter had known, of course, just how she would take this line of talk. “Nobody has ever loved me,” he said, sadly. “Nobody cares anything about you, when you are poor, and have nothing to offer—”
“I tell you, that isn’t it!” she insisted. “Please don’t think that! You are a hero. You have sacrificed for the cause, and you are going on and become a leader.”
“I hope so,” said Peter, modestly. “But then, what is it, Comrade Jennie? Why don’t you care for me?”
She looked up at him, and their eyes met, and with a little sob in her voice she answered, “I’m not well, Comrade Peter. I’m of no use; it would be wicked for me to marry.”
Somewhere back in the depths of Peter, where his inner self was crouching, it was as if a sudden douche of ice-cold water were let down on him. “Marry!” Who had said anything about marrying? Peter’s reaction fitted the stock-phrase of the comic papers: “This is so sudden!”
But Peter was too clever to reveal such dismay. He humored little Jennie, saying, “We don’t have to marry right away. I could wait, if only I knew that you cared for me; and some day, when you get well—”
She shook her head sadly. “I’m afraid I’ll never get really well. And besides, neither of us have any money, Comrade Peter.”
Ah, there it was! Money, always money! This “free love” was nothing but a dream.