except to look at you honestly and straight. What a damn wonderful girl and what am I doing here anyway? It is wicked. She is your last and true and only love, he thought, and that’s not evil. It is only unfortunate. No, he thought, it is damned fortunate and you are very fortunate.
They sat at a small table in the corner of the room and on their right there were four women at a larger table. One of the women was in mourning; a mourning so theatrical that it reminded the Colonel of the Lady Diana Manners playing the nun in Max Reinhardt’s, “The Miracle.” This woman had an attractive, plump, naturally gay face and her mourning was incongruous.
At the table there was another woman who had hair three times as white as hair can be, the Colonel thought. She, also, had a pleasant face. There were two other women whose faces meant nothing to the Colonel.
“Are they lesbians?” he asked the girl.
“I do not know,” she said. “They are all very nice people.”
“I should say they are lesbians. But maybe they are just good friends. Maybe they are both. It means nothing to me and it was not a criticism.”
“You are nice when you are gentle.”
“Do you suppose the word gentleman derives from a man who is gentle?”
“I do not know,” the girl said, and she ran her fingers very lightly over the scarred hand. “But I love you when you are gentle.”
