be able to give her more for her
money than when he had really
loved.
We must all be cut out for what
we do, he thought. However
you make your living is where
your talent lies. He had sold
vitality, in one form or another,
all his life and when your
affections are not too involved
you give much better value for
the money. He had found that
out but he would never write
that, now, either. No, he would
not write that, although it was
well worth writing.
Now she came in sight,
walking across the open toward
the camp. She was wearing
jodphurs and carrying her rifle.
The two boys had a Tommie
slung and they were coming
along behind her. She was still
a good-looking woman, he
thought, and she had a pleasant
body. She had a great talent
and appreciation for the bed,
she was not pretty, but he liked
her face, she read enormously,
liked to ride and shoot and,
certainly, she drank too much.
Her husband had died when
she was still a comparatively
young woman and for a while
she had devoted herself to her
two just-grown children, who
did not need her and were
embarrassed at having her
about, to her stable of horses,
to books, and to bottles. She
liked to read in the evening
before dinner and she drank
Scotch and soda while she
read. By dinner she was fairly
drunk and after a bottle of wine
at dinner she was usually drunk
enough to sleep.
That