"
"When you loved Violet?" she asked in low tones.
"Oh Lord no! This was a little French girl who picked me up when I was
squiffed after I'd passed the First. About twenty of us--all from St.
Crispin's--had been up for the First. We all passed but two, and we all
had to get drunk to buck those two up. We went to the Empire and kicked
up such a gory din that we were helped out. A little mamzelle from the
Promenade took charge of me. I--I hadn't thought about those things much
before. At home they were taboo. I'd always been terrified of girls--If
I hadn't been drunk then I'd never have done it. I thought it
unutterably beastly. For months after that I was afraid to look the
Mater in the face. I thought she was unutterably beastly, as well, just
because she was a woman. It made a tremendous dint on me."
Marcella grasped about a tenth of what he meant. The rest sank into her
mind to puzzle her later. But something sprang to the top of her
consciousness and raised a question.
"Louis," she said quickly, "That night at Naples--when you were naughty.
You talked French to me. I don't know what you said, but the
schoolmaster looked shocked."
He flushed.
"Yes, I've been told that before. I always do talk French if I meet a
girl when I'm boozy. I used to, to Violet, and she was--oh frightfully
disgusted.
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