You have a much better way with Mr. Nevers than have I, and someone must speak to him to enrol him in some plan to give Lieutenant Alford and our friend Nancy a little time together during the Sunday service. It will be Alford’s only opportunity to see Nancy before the ball, and to privately express his ardent feelings for her. Indeed, the word ‘ardent’ does not even fully capture the sentiment, for he is most desperately enamoured of her; it now appears. He tells me himself that he can neither eat nor sleep from thinking incessantly of her. He confides in me because he does not wish to distress his two brothers, who are most sensitive to his sensibilities. It is they who must each day endure the re-visitations of his raging war memories, who must attend the intermittent cries of: “The cavalry is down and we are taking a bloody drubbing!” and “Damn that bloodthirsty French hop-o’-my-thumb for bringing this stolid infantryman to infantile weeping!” and such other things as indicate that the war has left our friend battered in both mind and spirit.
