THE TALE OF A VIRGIN

It was on August 26th that we were first sure that the Allied forces and the German army had actually come in contact.  It seemed impossible for us to realize it, but, in the afternoon the Doctor, the Lawyer, and the Youngster took one of the cars, and made a run to the northeast.  The news they brought back did not at all coincide with the hopeful tone of the morning papers.  In fact it was not only evident that the fall of Namur had been followed almost immediately by that of Mons and Charleroi, but that the German hordes were well over the French frontier, and advancing rapidly, and the Allied armies simply flying before them.

The odd part was, that though the Youngster said that they had only run out fifty miles, they had heard the guns, and “the Doctor thinks,” he added, under his breath, “that we may be able to stick it out to the last day of the month.  Anyway, I advise you girls to look over your kits.  We may fly in a hurry—­such of us as must fly.”

However, we managed to get through dinner quite gaily.  We simply could not realize the menace, and the Doctor evidently meant that we should not.  He was in gayer spirits than he had been since the days of the great discussions, and after the few facts he had brought back were given us, he kept the talk on other matters, until the Sculptor, who had been lying back in his chair, blowing smoke rings in the air, stretched himself into his most graceful position, and called attention even to his pose, before he threw his cigarette far from him with a fine gesture, settled his handsome head into his clasped hands, and began: 

* * * * *

I had been ten years abroad.

In all that time I had been idle, prosperous, and wretched.

Every time Fate wrenched my heart with one of her long thin pitiless hands, she recompensed me with what the world calls “good luck.”  Every hope I had cherished failed me.  Every faith I had harbored deserted me.  Every venture in which neither heart nor soul was concerned flourished and flaunted its success in the face of the world, where I was considered a very fortunate man.

In the ten years of my exile I had travelled much, had been in contact with all kinds of people, had served some, and tried in vain to be concerned for them while I served.  If it had been my fate to make no friends, it was within my choice to be never alone.

I had that in my memory which I hoarded, and yet with which I would not allow myself to be deliberately alone.  The most terrible hours of my life were those when, toward morning, the rest of the world—­all the world save me—­having no past to escape, no enticing phantom to flee, went peacefully off to bed, and I was left alone in the night to drug memory, fight off thought, outwit imagination by any means that I might—­and some of them were desperate enough.

Ten years had passed thus.