“That’s a little rough,” the Colonel said. “Watch your beautiful mouth a little on that.”
“I get rough when you get rough,” she said. “You wouldn’t want me to be completely otherwise?”
“I would not want you to be in any way other than you are and I love you truly, finally and for good.”
“You say nice things very clearly, sometimes. What was it happened with you and your wife, if I may ask?”
“She was an ambitious woman and I was away too much.”
“You mean she went away, from ambition, when you only were away from duty?”
“Sure,” the Colonel said and remembered, as unbitterly as he could. “She had more ambition than Napoleon and about the talent of the average High School Valedictorian.”
“Whatever that is,” the girl said. “But let’s not speak about her. I’m sorry I asked the question. She must be sad that she is not with you.”
“No. She is too conceited ever to be sad, and she married me to advance herself in Army circles, and have better contacts for what she considered her profession, or her art. She was a journalist.”
“But they are dreadful,” the girl said.
“I agree.”
“But you couldn’t have married a woman journalist that kept on being that?”
“I told you I made mistakes,” the Colonel said.
“Let’s talk about something nice.”
