The tough times (Metaphor)
Hadley was terribly tired and sad. That was the tough period in her life. There was a song from that time by Nora Bayes called “Make Believe,” which was “persuasive.” It played that night Hadley “arrived in Chicago.” She felt it speaking “directly” to her. It said, “Make believe you are glad when you’re sorry. Sunshine will follow the rain.” Hadley had had her “share of rain.” Her mother’s illness and death “weighed” on her, but the years before had been “heavy, too.” She was only “twenty-eight,” and yet she had been living “like a spinster.” The song metaphorically forecasts her bright weather in her life. Her meeting with Ernest became crucial.
Popular (Metaphor)
The song ended and the dancing pair parted to catch their breath. Hadley moved to “one side of Kenley’s long living room” while Ernest was “quickly swallowed up by admirers-women, naturally.” They seemed “so awfully young and sure of themselves” with their “bobbed hair and brightly rouged cheeks.” Hadley felt insecure, for she was “closer to a Victorian holdout than a flapper.” He was surrounded by “vivacious women,” and her confidence was “waning.” Though Ernest was rather popular among women, none of them managed to win his heart so suddenly as Hadley did.
A mystery (Metaphor)
Hadley felt that both Ernest and Kate had a secret that they didn’t want to share with her. Though Kate called him her friend, there was “an edge” in her voice every time she mentioned his name. Ernest even admitted that he “used to pine” for Kate, but – according to Kate – he was “clearly over it now.” Hadley couldn’t know what had come “between these two old friends, but whatever it was, it was obviously complicated and well under wraps.” Hadley just “let it drop.” Hadley behaved like she did not care for what had been between this two, but later it is obvious that she never forgot.
A tragedy (Simile)
Ernest was eighteen-year-old when he was wounded at Fossalta. He was sent to Milan “to recover” where he “fell in love” with his “night nurse.” They were “all set to marry” when they “shipped” him back to the States. If he had had money then, he would have stayed and made her marry him. They took “twenty-eight pieces of shrapnel” out of him. “Hundreds more were too deep to reach,” and none of them was “as bad as the letter” that “finally” came from Ag. She fell in love with someone else, “a dashing Italian lieutenant.”
Both to blame (Simile)
Ernest and Kenley used to be very good friends. It seemed that they understood each other perfectly well and always enjoyed each other’s company. However, something bad happened and their friendship came to its end. Hadley “was still invited to stay” in her usual room at Kenley’s, but Ernest was asked “to impose on other friends” for the duration of Hadley’s visit. “I don’t know why Kenley’s acting so square suddenly,” Ernest said when “he delivered the news.” “He’s hardly pure as the driven snow.”
In Love (Simile)
Hadley was “as solid as the ground he walked on, too solid probably” that she loved Ernest. However, she couldn’t forget “Kate’s warning” against him, what was more she saw how much women were fond of Ernest and how much he was fond of them. She was afraid that he didn’t take her seriously, that she was just a short-lasting infatuation. Hadley had suffered enough and was mature enough to understand that Ernest was too hot-tempered to be in a serious, committed relationship.
