Chapter EIGHT: I

She hadn’t allowed herself to think about Eddie’s reply. She insisted to herself that it would be, must be, favourable; but when the letter came, when at last she held it in her hand, she was panic-stricken. She reverted.

"Oh, Gawd!" she murmured. "What if he’s changed his mind?"

This is what she read:

MY DEAREST GIRL:

You can’t possibly imagine how I felt when I got your letter. I was
still in the hospital where I had been for five months with a bad
foot, and, to tell you the truth, I didn’t care much whether I ever
went out of it again. I can’t explain it very well, but there is
something about the war and this filthy, brutal way of living that
makes it unbearable to lose any pleasures or joys out of life. You
get to believe that nothing matters except being happy. And you
_are_ my happiness. When I thought I’d lost you, I didn’t care
about going on. Of course, there’s your country, and your family,
and your ambition, and so on, but somehow they don’t seem _real_. I
thought of you all the time. I wrote and wrote, and didn’t get any
answer. Then I asked Vincent to look you up, but he wrote that
you’d moved and he couldn’t trace you. I don’t quite see how I
could have gone back on the firing-line again if you hadn’t
written. It’s bad enough anyway, but it wouldn’t be bearable
without some sort of guiding star. Don’t think I’m getting
sentimental, Angelica, but you are that, you know, to me.

I hope this will soon be over. It’s worse than I thought it would
be; but I’m glad I came. I wouldn’t like other fellows to be doing
this job for me. But when I get home! It seems like a vision of
Paradise--you waiting for me, and my home, and good food and a
nice, clean bed, and hot water!

I don’t want you to think that I’ve deteriorated, that I’m always
thinking of physical things, because I’m not. When you’re always
uncomfortable, you can’t help thinking too much about comfort; but
I think much more about other things. I think a lot about what is
the best way to use a life. I can see lots of things I’ve done
wrong. I look forward awfully to making a fresh start. It will all
seem so new, like being born again. Everything will seem remarkable
and interesting--all sort of things I didn’t use to notice.

And to think that there was a time when I used to think quite
calmly about being married to you! Of course, my dear, I always did
look forward to it as the greatest possible happiness, but I more
or less took it for granted--the sort of happiness a fellow always
expects. But now, Angelica, it seems as wonderful and beautiful and
far off as heaven. I can’t even really believe that I’ll see you
ever again. I’ve got so used to being a lousy, muddy, hunted animal
that I can’t believe it will ever end. I don’t even long for the
end; it seems so impossible. I have a damnable conviction--an
obsession, I suppose they’d call it--that every one gets killed in
the war. So many of the chaps I knew have gone, often killed beside
me--and in the hospital, dying so sickeningly! I can’t help
imagining that every one in the world is dying. So that the idea of
coming home and marrying you is--I can’t describe what it is.
Really and literally a dream of heaven.

Angelica, darling, don’t disappoint me again! I couldn’t bear it.
Write to me faithfully, as often as possible--even every day. It
wouldn’t be much to do, for you who are at home and safe and
comfortable.

With all my heart,

EDDIE.

Now this letter might have disappointed another girl, but not Angelica. She didn’t at all mind its being so little lover-like, so much concerned with Eddie and his feelings, and so little concerned with herself. She was, in fact, very proud that such a learned and serious young man as Eddie should write to her at all. She was overjoyed, exultant, to see that he still wanted her--with a sort of humility in her joy quite unusual in her.

"I won’t disappoint him ever again!" she cried. "I’ll do my very best. I’ll just _live_ for him! And if it’s like a dream of heaven to him," she reflected, "so it is to me. I’ve suffered, too. It couldn’t have been much worse for any one, anywhere. Oh, won’t it be heaven to be _safe_--to be his wife, and settled there at Buena Vista, and rich, and every one looking up to me? A motor-car of my own, and lovely clothes, and a beautiful room! I’ll have Miss Sillon and Miss Devery out to see me."

She looked at herself in the mirror.

"I’m getting to look refined," she thought; "not factory any more. When I can have real grand clothes, I’ll be _beautiful_! Vincent said I lost heaven when I stopped loving him," she reflected. "Well, I’ll get it back again, with Eddie!"

II

In spite of his entreaty, she waited for more than a week before she replied to Eddie’s letter, for she wished to have something to tell him. She spent two entire evenings over her letter, and when it was done there was hardly a mistake in it, in spelling, in grammar, or in sentiment; for Angelica was fast learning the correct way to feel.

DEAR EDDIE:

Your letter was wonderful, and I could not write one nearly so
good, or so interesting. I understand how you feel, but I do not
know how to say anything. I feel like that, too, afraid to expect
any happiness, but I want to fight for it. I want to tell God that
I will not be cheated, and that it has all got to come out right.

I go to the movies with mother whenever there is a war picture, to
try and get some idea what it is like over there, but I guess no
one can. That is another thing I don’t dare to think about--all
that you must be suffering. But, Eddie dear, I will try my best to
make it up to you when you get back.

I don’t go to the factory any more, but I have a very nice place as
a milliner with two girls who have a shop in Washington Square. I
am doing nicely. I design the hats myself and make them, and Miss
Sillon says it will not be long before my hats are recognized
everywhere in New York. "Angélique," I call myself on the label I
sew in the hats. She says they are almost too daring, but very
original.

She wanted to write more--much more--about her hats, but she knew it wouldn’t do. She was required to fill up the letter with general observations and with her interest in Eddie, and she did so.

She was pleased with this letter, and yet it troubled her. She felt both mean and cruel. She knew that she had nothing to give Eddie; she knew that in every way she was defrauding and injuring him. To stifle her distress she had only her profound faith in herself, her conviction that she had obliterated the past and could and would make a glorious future. She couldn’t help contrasting her laboured and prudent letter with his careless candour. Evidently he didn’t care what he said. He just wrote her what came to his mind. He felt so sure of her!

"I haven’t really done him any harm," she protested, lying awake in the dark. "If he never knows, it’s just exactly the same--for him--as if it had never happened."

And still she knew that she was forcing him to play the part he would have hated and rejected beyond any other--that of the poor dishonoured fool. She didn’t even love him.

"I’ll learn to love him!" she cried. "I love him a little bit already."

And still she knew how much she disliked even the memory of his kisses.

Sometimes a wave of sheer terror overcame her.

"No one’s ever done such a thing," she thought, remembering all the stories she had read. "It can’t be done. Somehow--some day--it would be found out. It always is!"

But this she could combat.

"I don’t care if it’s never been done!" she would cry. "_I’ll_ do it! I’ll marry Eddie, and he’ll _never know_, and it’ll all end happily. I’ll make it! I _won’t_ be found out!"