On the table beside her there was a basket of early summer
flowers which the Pole had left after he heard of the accident. He always
managed to know what went on in Lena's apartment.
Lena was telling me some amusing piece of gossip about one of her clients,
when I interrupted her and picked up the flower basket.
`This old chap will be proposing to you some day, Lena.'
`Oh, he has--often!' she murmured.
`What! After you've refused him?'
`He doesn't mind that. It seems to cheer him to mention the subject. Old
men are like that, you know. It makes them feel important to think they're
in love with somebody.'
`The colonel would marry you in a minute. I hope you won't marry some old
fellow; not even a rich one.' Lena shifted her pillows and looked up at me
in surprise.
`Why, I'm not going to marry anybody. Didn't you know that?'
`Nonsense, Lena. That's what girls say, but you know better. Every
handsome girl like you marries, of course.'
She shook her head. `Not me.'
`But why not? What makes you say that?' I persisted.
Lena laughed.
`Well, it's mainly because I don't want a husband. Men are all right for
friends, but as soon as you marry them they turn into cranky old fathers,
even the wild ones. They begin to tell you what's sensible and what's
foolish, and want you to stick at home all the time.
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