She tried not to think of Anthony. It was as though she were writing to
a stranger. She told her friends that he had been made a corporal and
was annoyed when they were politely unimpressed. One night she wept
because she was sorry for him--had he been even slightly responsive she
would have gone to him without hesitation on the first train-whatever he
was doing he needed to be taken care of spiritually, and she felt that
now she would be able to do even that. Recently, without his continual
drain upon her moral strength she found herself wonderfully revived.
Before he left she had been inclined through sheer association to brood
on her wasted opportunities--now she returned to her normal state of
mind, strong, disdainful, existing each day for each day's worth. She
bought a doll and dressed it; one week she wept over "Ethan Frome"; the
next she revelled in some novels of Galsworthy's, whom she liked for his
power of recreating, by spring in darkness, that illusion of young
romantic love to which women look forever forward and forever back.
In October Anthony's letters multiplied, became almost frantic--then
suddenly ceased.
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