The Happy Foreigner by Enid Bagnold
page 94 of 274 (34%)
page 94 of 274 (34%)
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"One must arrange some plan," he said, pursuing his perplexity, "so that
I know when you go, and when you come back. I can't always be holding inspections to find out." "It was for that _that_ you held the inspection?" "Why, of course, of course!" "But entirely to find out?" (divided between the desire to make him say it again and the fear of driving his motives into daylight). "I didn't know what to do. I couldn't telephone and ask whether your car had returned." Wonderful and excellent! She had had the notion while she was at Verdun that something might be rolling up to her account in the bank at Metz, and now he was giving her proof after proof of the accumulation. But from the valley of vanity she suddenly flew up to wonder. "He does that for me!" looking at herself in the mirror of her mind. "He does it for me!" But of what use to look at the daylight image of herself--the khaki figure, the driver? "For he must be looking at glory as I do." The Russian said: "Love is an illusory image." "Isn't it strange how these human creatures can cast it like a net out of their personality?..." Vanity, creeping above love, beat it down like a stick beats down a fire; it was too easy to-day; he gave her nothing left to wish for; the spell over him, she felt, was complete, and now she had nothing else to do but develop her own. And this she had instantly less inclination to do. But, guided by his bright wits, he too withdrew, let the tacit assumption of intimacy drop between them, and their walk by the Moselle |
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