Darrell
[Curtly—with authority]
How do you know it’s ridiculous? What do you know of Nina since she left home? But she hadn’t been nursing with us three days before I saw she really ought to be a patient; and ever since then I’ve studied her case. So I think it’s up to you to listen.
Marsden
[Freezingly]
I’m listening.
[With apprehensive terror]
Gutter . . . has she . . . I wish he wouldn’t tell me! . . .
Darrell
[Thinking]
How much need I tell him? . . . can’t tell him the raw truth about her promiscuity . . . he isn’t built to face reality . . . no writer is outside of his books . . . have to tone it down for him . . . but not too much! . . .
Nina has been giving way more and more to a morbid longing for martyrdom. The reason for it is obvious. Gordon went away without—well, let’s say marrying her. The war killed him. She was left suspended. Then she began to blame herself and to want to sacrifice herself and at the same time give happiness to various fellow war-victims by pretending to love them. It’s a pretty idea but it hasn’t worked out. Nina’s a bad actress. She hasn’t convinced the men of her love—or herself of her good intentions. And each experience of this kind has only left her more a prey to a guilty conscience than before and more determined to punish herself!
