“Yes,” the Colonel said. “May I help you?”
“No, I’ve done it all my life.”
“You could stand sidewise.”
“No. All contours are for our five sons and for your head to rest on.”
“I was only thinking of the face,” the Colonel said. “But thank you for calling my attention. My attention has been faulty again.”
“I am over bold.”
“No,” the Colonel said. “In America, they make such things of wire and of sponge-rubber, such as you use in the seats of tanks. You never know there, whether there is any truth in the matter, unless you are a bad boy as I am.”
“Here it is not that way,” she said, and, with the comb, swung her now parted hair forward so that it came below the line of her cheek, and slanting back, hung over her shoulders.
“Do you like it neat?”
“It’s not too neat but it is damn lovely.”
“I could put it up and all that sort of thing if you value neatness. But I cannot manage hairpins and it seems so silly.” Her voice was so lovely and it always reminded him of Pablo Casals playing the cello that it made him feel as a wound does that you think you cannot bear. But you can bear anything, he thought.
“I love you very much the way you are,” the Colonel said. “And you are the most beautiful woman I have ever known, or seen, even in paintings by good painters.”
“I wonder why the portrait has not come.”
