THE RETURN OF THE SOLDIER
You know, it’s a horrid little house, is Mariposa. They put cows into the field at the back, sometimes. I like that; but otherwise it isn’t very much.
Jenny : It’s got a very pretty name.
Margaret (aglow): Yes, isn’t it? Mariposa. It’s Spanish, you know, for butterfly. (Warming up) You know . . . it’s wrong of me, I suppose, but coming up here in the car like that, and everything . . . I can’t think of a meeting with Chris as anything but a kind of treat. I know it’s terrible the way we’re coming together, but I’ve got a sort of party feeling about it all. And I have so wanted to see him again . . . even though I’ve tried and pretended not to for Mr. Grey’s sake, and his, as well as my own . . . ever since we parted.
Jenny : How did you come to part?
Margaret (growing fifteen years younger as she dives back into the past) : Oh, it was the silliest quarrel. We had known how we felt for just a week. Such a week! Lovely weather we had . . . it’s pretty down there at Bray . . . I don’t know if you know it . . . and father hadn’t noticed anything. I didn’t want him to, because I thought he might want the marriage soon and think a delay a slight on me, and I knew we would have to wait. Chris had told me his father’s business was in a bad way and he might have to go
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