effect on my husband."

"A bad effect?" I repeated.

"Yes. He irritates him. He laughs at his inventions, you know."

I nodded my head. Yes, with my earlier experience of him I could
understand that he would do that.

"He's a cynical, embittered man," I said. "He believes in nothing and in
nobody. And yet he has his fine side--"

"No, he has no fine side," she interrupted me fiercely. "None. He is a
bad man. I've known him all my life, and I'm not to be deceived."

Then in a softer, quieter tone she continued:

"But tell me, Ivan Andreievitch. I've wanted before to ask you. You were
with him on the Front last year. We have heard that he had a great love
affair there, and that the Sister whom he loved was killed. Is that
true?"

"Yes," I said, "that is true."

"Was he very much in love with her?"

"I believe terribly."

"And it hurt him deeply when she was killed?"