If _she_ thinks well of me--"
"You are very much in love," I said, and loosed, as I had expected,
the torrents of his happiness upon me.
"I was in Polchester when the war broke out. The town received it
rather as though a first-class company had come from London to act in
the Assembly Rooms for a fortnight. It was dramatic and picturesque
and pleasantly patriotic. They see it otherwise now, I fancy. I seemed
at once to think of Russia. For one thing I wanted desperately to
help, and I thought that in England they would only laugh at me as
they had always done. I am short-sighted. I knew that I should never
be a soldier. I fancied that in Russia they would not say: 'Oh, John
Trenchard of Polchester.... _He's_ no good!' before they'd seen
whether I could do anything. Then of course I had read about the
country--Tolstoi and Turgeniev, and a little Dostoevsky and even Gorki
and Tchekov. I went quite suddenly, making up my mind one evening. I
seemed to begin to be a new man out of England.
Pages:
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53