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the light out,’ Gretchen said. The next bus passed the hospital in about fifteen minutes and she didn’t want to miss it.
    Pushing off his good leg, Arnold bounced up on the table. He sat there swinging his legs. ‘You don’t know the pleasure a man can get,’ Arnold said, ‘just looking down and seeing his own two feet. Just go on home, Miss Jordache, I imagine you got some fine young man waiting for you and I wouldn’t like him to be upset your not coming on time.’
    ‘Nobody’s waiting for me,’ Gretchen said. Now she felt guilty that she had wanted to hustle the boy out of the room just to catch a bus. There’d be another bus along. ‘I’m in no
    hurry.’
    He took a package of cigarettes out of his pocket and offered her one. She shook her head. ‘No, thank you. I don’t smoke.’ He lit his cigarette, his hands very steady, his eyes narrowed against the smoke. His movements were all deliberate and slow. He had been a football player in high school in St Louis before he was drafted, he had told her, and the athlete remained in the wounded soldier. He patted the table next to him. ‘Why don’t you set awhile, Miss Jordache?’ he said. You must be weary, on your feet all night, running around the way you do for us.’
    ‘I don’t mind,’ Gretchen said. ‘I sit most of the day in the office.’ But she hoisted herself up to the table beside him, to
    show that she was not anxious to leave. They sat side by side, their legs hanging over the side of the table.
    ‘You got pretty feet,’ Arnold said.
    Gretchen looked down at her sensible, low-heeled, brown
    shoes. ‘I suppose they’re all right,’ she said. She thought she had pretty feet, too, narrow and not too long, and slender ankles.
    ‘I became an expert on feet in this man’s army,’ Arnold said. He said it without self-pity, as another man might have said, ‘I learned how to fix radios in the Army,’ or, The Army taught me how to read maps.’ His absence of compassion for himself made her feel a rush of pity for the soft-spoken, slow-moving boy. ‘You’ll be all right,’ she said. The nurses tell me the doctors’ve done wonders for your leg.’
    “Yeah,’ Arnold chuckled. ‘Just don’t bet on old Arnold gaining a lot of ground from here on in.’
    ‘How old are you, Arnold?’
    Twenty-two. You?’
    ‘Nineteen.’
    He grinned. ‘Good ages, huh?’
    ‘I suppose so. If we didn’t have a war.’
    ‘Oh, I’m not complaining,’ Arnold said, pulling at his cigarette. ‘It got me out of St Louis. Made a man of me.’ There was the tone of mockery in his voice. ‘Ain’t a dumb kid no more. I know what the score is now and who adds up the numbers. Saw some interesting places, met some interesting folk. You ever been in Cornwall, Miss Jordache? That’s in England.’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Jordache,’ Arnold said. That a name from around these parts?’
    ‘No,’ Gretchen said. ‘It’s German. My father came over from Germany. He was wounded in the leg too. In the First War. He was in the German army.’
    Arnold chuckled. They get a man coming and going, don’t they?’ he said. ‘He do much running, your pa?’
    ‘He limps a little,’ Gretchen spoke carefully. ‘It doesn’t seem to interfere too much.’
    ‘Yeah, Cornwall.’ Arnold rocked back and forth a little on the table. He seemed to have had enough of talk about wars and wounds. “They got palm trees, little old towns, make St Louis look like it was built the day before yesterday. Big, wide beaches. Yeah. Yeah, England. Folk’re real nice. Hospitable. Invite you to their homes for Sunday dinner. They surprised me. Always felt the English were uppity. Anyway, that was the general impression about ‘em in the circles in which I moved in St Louis as a young man.’
    Gretchen felt he was making fun of her, gently, with the ironic formal pronouncement. ‘People have to learn about each other,’ she said stiffly, unhappy about how pompous she was sounding, but somehow