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137
The Solitary Summer
·
Elizabeth Von Arnim
128
I
took
him
for
a
drive
in
the
afternoon,
after
having
vainly
urged
him
to
rest,
and
while
he
told
me
about
his
horses,
and
his
regiment,
and
his
brother
officers,
in
what
at
last
grew
to
be
a
decidedly
intermittent
prattle,
I
amused
myself
by
wondering
what
he
would
say
if
I
suddenly
began
to
hold
forth
on
the
themes
I
love
best,
and
insist
that
he
should
note
the
beauty
of
the
trees
as
they
stood
that
afternoon
expectant,
with
all
their
little
buds
only
waiting
for
the
one
warm
shower
to
burst
into
the
glory
of
young
summer.
Perhaps
he
would
regard
me
as
the
German
variety
of
a
hyena
in
petticoats--the
imagination
recoils
before
the
probable
fearfulness
of
such
an
animal--or,
if
not
quite
so
bad
as
that,
at
any
rate
a
creature
hysterically
inclined;
and
he
would
begin
to
feel
lonely,
and
think
of
his
comrades,
and
his
pleasant
mess,
and
perhaps
even
of
his
mother,
for
he
was
very
young
and
newly
fledged.
Therefore
I
held
my
peace,
and
restricted
my
conversation
to
things
military,
of
which
I
know
probably
less
than
any
other
woman
in
Germany,
so
that
my
remarks
must
have
been
to
an
unusual
degree
impressive.
He
talked
down
to
me,
and
I
talked
down
to
him,
and
we
reached
home
in
a
state
of
profoundest
exhaustion--at
least
I
know
I
did,
but
when
I
looked
at
him
he
had
not
visibly
turned
a
hair.
I
went
upstairs
trying
to
hope
that
he
had
felt
it
more
than
he
showed,
and
that
during
the
remainder
of
his
stay
he
would
adopt
the
suggestion
so
eagerly
offered
of
spending
his
spare
time
in
his
room
resting.
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