“You’ve had a permanent,” he said after a while.
“No, just set,” she whispered.
“I like you fluffy better,” he said. “You look too damn expensive like that. I only make a few thousand a year.”
She was silent, motionless in his arms. He could feel her mind retreat from him.
“You can’t want me,” she said.
“You’re thinking of guys like Stevens,” he said. “He was an aviator, shot down; he went through it; he knew what it was all about. Maybe he had a right to judge. What right have I to judge, darling? I’m the character who never went to war. How can I tell you how brave you should have been, when I don’t even know how brave I am myself?”
You could not help what you saw in the steel mirror, and the mirror would not break. There were those who could be proud of what they had seen in it—and then there were the others, who simply had to live with it.
Table of Contents
chapter ONE
chapter TWO
chapter THREE
chapter FOUR
chapter FIVE
chapter SIX
chapter SEVEN
chapter EIGHT
chapter NINE
chapter TEN
chapter ELEVEN
chapter TWELVE
chapter THIRTEEN
chapter FOURTEEN
chapter FIFTEEN
chapter SIXTEEN
chapter SEVENTEEN
chapter EIGHTEEN
chapter NINETEEN
chapter TWENTY
chapter TWENTY-ONE
chapter TWENTY-TWO
chapter TWENTY-THREE
chapter TWENTY-FOUR
chapter TWENTY-FIVE
chapter TWENTY-SIX
The Steel Mirror Page 22