I remembered thinking often what a pity
nice boys like that must be killed and crippled by the thousand. When
we came here, Charlie was working down at the settlement. Somehow I
was awfully glad to see him--any friendly face would have been welcome
those first months before I grew used to these terrible silences, this
complete isolation which I had never before known.
"Well, the upshot was that he fell in love with me, and for
awhile--for a little while--I thought I was experiencing a real
affection at last, myself; a new love rising fine and true out of the
ashes of old ones.
"And it frightened me. It made me stop and think. When he would stare
at me with those sad eyes I wanted to comfort him, I wanted to go away
with him to some distant place where no one knew me and begin life all
over again. And I knew it wouldn't do. It would only be the same thing
over again, because I'm made the way I am. I was beginning to see that
it would take a good deal of a man to hold my fitful fancy very long.
Charlie's a nice boy. He's clean and sensitive, and I'm sure he'd be
kind and good to any woman.
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