It's amazing. And she's different, anyway----
She's on the stage--in the chorus to begin with--but you'd think they'd
given her a lead, she's so happy about it. That's what I love about her.
Everything seems jolly to her. She enjoys things like a kid--a 'bus
ride, a cinema, our little suppers together. She loves just being alive,
you know. It's extraordinary--I say, are you listening, Stonehouse?"
"I didn't know you wanted me to listen. I thought you wanted to talk. I
was thinking of an operation I saw once--you wouldn't understand--it was
a ticklish job, and the man lost his head. He tried to hide it, but I
knew, and he saw I knew. A man like that oughtn't to operate."
"And did the other fellow die?"
"Oh, yes. But he would have died anyway, probably. It wasn't that that
mattered. It was losing his nerve like that."
"If I saw an operation," Cosgrave said humbly, "I should be sick."
Stonehouse had not heard. They reached the bridge in silence, and under
a street lamp stopped to take leave of one another. It was their
customary walk and the customary ending, and each wondered in his
different way how it was that they should always want to meet and to talk
to one another of things that only one of them could understand.
"Why does he bother with me?" Cosgrave thought.
But he was sorry for Robert, partly because he guessed that he was hungry
and partly because he knew that he was not in love.
"I wish you'd come along too," he said a little breathlessly; "I want you
to meet her, you know--for us all to be friends together--just a quiet
supper--and my treat, of course.
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