isn’t it?”
“It’s riches to me.”
“Oh, how lovely it will be!”
“But I ought to get divorced, and so ought you, unless we’re going to have complications.”
There was plenty to think about.
Another day she asked him about himself. They were in the hut, and there was a thunderstorm.
“And weren’t you happy when you were a lieutenant and an officer and a gentleman?”
“Happy? All right. I liked my Colonel.”
“Did you love him?”
“Yes! I loved him.”
“And did he love you?”
“Yes! In a way, he loved me.”
“Tell me about him.”
“What is there to tell? He had risen from the ranks. He loved the army. And he had never married. He was twenty years older than me. He was a very intelligent man: and alone in the army, as such a man is: a passionate man in his way: and a very clever officer. I lived under his spell while I was with him. I sort of let him run my life. And I never regret it.”
“And did you mind very much when he died?”