After what seems like token resistance on her part, the affair between the narrator and Miss Barkley begins. Clearly they have different agendas, however. The narrator sees their relationship as a chess game. By contrast, Miss Barkley seems to be projecting her love for her lost fiancé onto the narrator: She cries when they kiss for the first time, begs him to be good to her, and tells him rather enigmatically that "we're going to have a strange life."
The foreshadowing of the narrator's desertion continues in his discussion with the head nurse, who also finds it odd that he enlisted with the Italians. He himself feels uncomfortable giving the Italian salute. During his talk with Miss Barkley, the narrator suggests "Let's drop the war." Her response: "It's very hard. There's no place to drop it." After she slaps him following an attempted kiss, he jokes, "And we have gotten away from the war." She laughs. At this point in the story, Miss Barkley already knows that the war can't simply be "dropped." As the tragic loss of a loved one has taught her, the war has consequences. The narrator, however, is not yet aware of this fact.
