mouth shuts after the word as if it never wanted to open again.

Oliver spreads both hands out hopelessly.

"Are you _never_ going to get over that, you ass?"

"You didn't do the things I did," from Ted, rather difficultly. "If you
had--"

"If I had I'd have been as sorry as you are, probably, that I'd knocked
over the apple cart occasionally. But I wouldn't spend the rest of my life
worrying about it and thinking I wasn't fit to go into decent society
because of what happened to most of the A.E.F. Why you sound as if you'd
committed the unpardonable sin. And it's nonsense."

"Well--thinking of Elinor--I'm not too darn sure I didn't," from Ted,
dejectedly.

"That comes of being born in New England and that's all there is to it.
Anyhow, it's over now, isn't it?"

"Not exactly--it comes back."

"Well, kick it every time it does."

"But you don't understand. That and--people like Elinor--" says Ted
hopelessly.

"I do understand."