With a quiver of enjoyment of the
mental exercise, he tried to imagine the colonel as a swaggering blade
among women.
The colonel, oblivious of Sam's mirth and of his silence regarding his
experience in the field of love, began talking, making amends for the
silence in the grill. He told Sam that he had decided to take to himself a
new wife, and confessed that the view of the matter his daughter might
take worried him. "Children are so unfair," he complained; "they forget
about a man's feelings and can't realise that his heart is still young."
With a smile on his lips, Sam began trying to picture a woman's lying in
his place and looking at the moon over the pulsating hill. The colonel
continued talking. He grew franker, telling the name of his beloved and
the circumstances of their meeting and courtship. "She is an actress, a
working girl," he said feelingly. "I met her at a dinner given by Will
Sperry one evening and she was the only woman there who did not drink
wine. After the dinner we went for a drive together and she told me of her
hard life, of her fight against temptations, and of her brother, an
artist, she is trying to get started in the world. We have been together a
dozen times and have written letters, and, Sam, we have discovered an
affinity for each other.
Pages:
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225