Soldiers Pay by William Faulkner

more than nineteen. (Why is nineteen ashamed of its age?) She treats me like a child, he thought, fretted and gaining courage, watching with increasing boldness her indicated shoulders and wondering with interest if she had stockings on.
    Why didn’t I say something as I came in? Something easy and intimate? Listen, when I first saw you my love for you was like—my love was like—my love for you—God, if I only hadn’t drunk so much last night I could say it my love for you my love is love is like . . . and found himself watching her arms as she moved and her loose sleeves fell away from them, saying, yes, he was glad the war was over and telling her that he had forty-seven hours’ flying time and would have got wings in two weeks more, and that his mother in San Francisco was expecting him.
    She treats me like a child, he thought with exasperation, seeing the slope of her shoulders and the place where her breast was.
    â€œHow black your hair is,” he said, and she said:
    â€œLowe, when are you going home?”
    â€œI don’t know. Why should I go home? I think I’ll have to look at the country first.”
    â€œBut your mother!” She glanced at him.
    â€œOh, well,” he said largely, “you know what women are—always worrying you.”
    â€œLowe! How do you know so much about things? Women? You—aren’t married, are you?”
    â€œMe married?” repeated Lowe with ungrammatical zest, “me married? Not so’s you know it. I have lots of girls, but married?” he brayed with brief unnecessary vigour. What made you think so?” he asked with interest.
    â€œOh, I don’t know. You look so—so mature, you see.”
    â€œAh, that’s flying does that. Look at him in there.”
    â€œIs that it? I had noticed something about you. . . .You would have been an ace, too, if you’d seen any Germans, wouldn’t you?”
    He glanced at her quickly, like a struck dog. Here was his old dull despair again.
    â€œI’m so sorry,” she said with quick sincerity. “I didn’t think: of course you would. Anyway, it wasn’t your fault. You did your best, I know.”
    â€œOh, for Christ’s sake,” he said, hurt, “what do you women want, anyway? I am as good a flyer as any ever was at the front—flying or any other way.” He sat morose under her eyes. He rose suddenly. “Say, what’s your name, anyway?”
    â€œMargaret,” she told him. He approached the bed where she sat and she said: “More coffee?” stopping him dead. “You’ve forgotten your cup. There it is, on the table.”
    Before he thought he had returned and fetched his cup, received coffee he did not want. He felt like a fool and being young he resented it. All right for you, he promised her and sat again in a dull rage. To hell with them all.
    â€œI have offended you, haven’t I?” she asked. “But, Lowe, I feel so bad, and you were about to make love to me.”
    â€œWhy do you think that?” he asked, hurt and dull.
    â€œOh, I don’t know. But women can tell. And I don’t want to be made love to. Gilligan has already done that.”
    â€œGilligan? Why, I’ll kill him if he has annoyed you.”
    â€œNo, no: he didn’t offend me, any more than you did. It was flattering. But why were you going to make love to me? You thought of it before you came in, didn’t you?”
    Lowe told her youngly: “I thought of it on the train when I first saw you. When I saw you I knew you were the woman for me. Tell me, you don’t like him better than me because he has wings and a scar, do you?”
    â€œWhy, of course not.” She looked at him a moment, calculating. Then she said: “Mr. Gilligan says he is dying.”
    â€œDying?” he repeated, and “Dying?” How the man managed to circumvent him at every turn! As if it were not