"All right," I said.
We drank the second grappa, Rinaldi put away the bottle and we went down the stairs.
It was hot walking through the town but the sun was starting to go down and it was very pleasant.
The British hospital was a big villa built by Germans before the war.
Miss Barkley was in the garden.
Another nurse was with her.
We saw their white uniforms through the trees and walked toward them.
Rinaldi saluted.
I saluted too but more moderately.
"How do you do?" Miss Barkley said. "You're not an Italian, are you?"
"Oh, no."
Rinaldi was talking with the other nurse.
They were laughing.
"What an odd thing--to be in the Italian army."
"It's not really the army.
It's only the ambulance."
"It's very odd though.
Why did you do it?"
"I don't know," I said. "There isn't always an explanation for everything."
"Oh, isn't there?
I was brought up to think there was."
"That's awfully nice."
"Do we have to go on and talk this way?"
"No," I said.
"That's a relief. Isn't it?"
"What is the stick?" I asked.
Miss Barkley was quite tall.
She wore what seemed to me to be a nurse's uniform, was blonde and had a tawny skin and gray eyes.
I thought she was very beautiful.
She was carrying a thin rattan stick like a toy riding-crop, bound in leather.
"It belonged to a boy who was killed last year."
"I'm awfully sorry."
"He was a very nice boy.
He was going to marry me and he was killed in the Somme."
"It was a ghastly show."
"Were you there?"
"No."
"I've heard about it," she said. "There's not really any war of that sort down here.
They sent me the little stick.
His mother sent it to me.
They returned it with his things."
"Had you been engaged long?"
"Eight years.
We grew up together."
"And why didn't you marry?"
"I don't know," she said. "I was a fool not to.
I could have given him that anyway.
But I thought it would be bad for him."
"I see."
"Have you ever loved any one?"