THE RETURN OF THE SOLDIER
[She bows her head and weeps in silence, hugging the teddy-bear.
Jenny : Please . . . please. You must be brave. I think these are the best things to take him. This is one of the blue jerseys he used to wear. This is the ball he and his father used to play with on the lawn.
Margaret (looking up, vaguely bewildered) : Yes . . . yes. You’ve chosen the very things he would remember. Oh, you poor girl!
[She inspects the jersey and the ball, and holds them to her face.
I think I know the kind of boy he was—a man from the first.
[Then she lays them down and rises from her knees. There, put them back.
Jenny (amazed) : What . . . what do you mean?
Margaret : I can’t do it. I thought I meant to take them to him. But, oh, how can I? How can I?
Jenny : But . . . but you said . . .
Margaret : Oh, I can’t . . . I can’t. Either I never should have come or you should let him be. You can’t bring him back. You mustn’t. Oh, perhaps I should’nt have come. I didn’t know myself the second time whether I ought . . . seeing we were both married and that.
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