Transcriber's Notes

1. Where possible, punctuation has been normalized to contemporary standards.
2. Several different styles of thought breaks (vertical space, dots, stars, line) have been retained from the original.
3. Obvious typographic and spelling errors have been corrected.
4. Diacritical marks are as they appeared in the printed book, and may not reflect current usage.
5. All illustrations link to full-size images by clicking on the caption.

MAN AND MAID

[Suzette (Renee Adoree) makes the tedious hours of the wounded Sir Nicholas Thormonde (Lew Cody) seem less monotonous. (A scene from Elinor Glyn's production "Man and Maid" for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer)]

COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY ELINOR GLYN

MAN AND MAID

I

February, 1918.

I am sick of my life—The war has robbed it of all that a young man can find of joy.

I look at my mutilated face before I replace the black patch over the left eye, and I realize that, with my crooked shoulder, and the leg gone from the right knee downwards, that no woman can feel emotion for me again in this world.

So be it—I must be a philosopher.

Mercifully I have no near relations—Mercifully I am still very rich, mercifully I can buy love when I require it, which under the circumstances, is not often.

Why do people write journals? Because human nature is filled with egotism. There is nothing so interesting to oneself as oneself; and journals cannot yawn in one's face, no matter how lengthy the expression of one's feelings may be!

A clean white page is a sympathetic thing, waiting there to receive one's impressions!

Suzette supped with me, here in my appartement last night—When she had gone I felt a beast. I had found her attractive on Wednesday, and after an excellent lunch, and two Benedictines, I was able to persuade myself that her tenderness and passion were real, and not the result of some thousands of francs,—And then when she left I saw my face in the glass without the patch over the socket, and a profound depression fell upon me.

Is it because I am such a mixture that I am this rotten creature?—An American grandmother, a French mother, and an English father. Paris—Eton—Cannes—Continuous traveling. Some years of living and enjoying a rich orphan's life.—The war—fighting—a zest hitherto undreamed of—unconsciousness—agony—and then?—well now Paris again for special treatment.

Why do I write this down? For posterity to take up the threads correctly?—Why?

From some architectural sense in me which must make a beginning, even of a journal, for my eyes alone, start upon a solid basis?

I know not—and care not.

Three charming creatures are coming to have tea with me to-day. They had heard of my loneliness and my savageness from Maurice—They burn to give me their sympathy—and have tea with plenty of sugar in it—and chocolate cake.

I used to wonder in my salad days what the brains of women were made of—when they have brains!—The cleverest of them are generally devoid of a logical sense, and they seldom understand the relative value of things, but they make the charm of life, for one reason or another.

When I have seen these three I will dissect them. A divorcée—a war widow of two years—and the third with a husband fighting.

All, Maurice assures me, ready for anything, and highly attractive. It will do me a great deal of good, he protests. We shall see.

Night. They came, with Maurice and Alwood Chester, of the American Red Cross. They gave little shrill screams of admiration for the room.

"Quel endroit delicieux!—What boiserie! English?—Yes, of course, English dix-septième, one could see—What silver!—and cleaned—And everything of a chic!—And the hermit so séduisant with his air maussade!—Hein."

"Yes, the war is much too long—One has given of one's time in the first year—but now, really, fatigue has overcome one!—and surely after the spring offensive peace must come soon—and one must live!"

They smoked continuously and devoured the chocolate cake, then they had liqueurs.

They were so well dressed! and so lissome. They wore elastic corsets, or none at all. They were well painted; cheeks of the new tint, rather apricot coloured—and magenta lips. They had arranged themselves when they had finished munching, bringing out their gold looking-glasses and their lip grease and their powder—and the divorcee continued to endeavour to enthrall my senses with her voluptuous half closing of the eyes, while she reddened her full mouth.

They spoke of the theatre, and the last bons mots about their chères amies—the last liasons—the last passions—They spoke of Gabrielle—her husband was killed last week—'So foolish of him, since one of Alice's 'friends' among the Ministers could easily have got him a soft job, and one must always help one's friends! Alice adored Gabrielle.—But he has left her well provided for—Gabrielle will look well in her crepe—and there it is, war is war—Que voulez vous?'

"After all, will it be as agreeable if peace does come this summer?—One will be able to dance openly—that will be nice—but for the rest? It may be things will be more difficult—and there may be complications. One has been very well during the war—very well, indeed—N'est ce pas ma cherie—n'est ce pas?"

Thus they talked.

The widow's lover is married, Maurice tells me, and has been able to keep his wife safely down at their place in Landes, but if peace should come he must be en famille, and the wife can very well be disagreeable about the affair.

The divorcée's three lovers will be in Paris at the same time. The married one's husband returned for good—"Yes, certainly, peace will have its drawbacks—The war knows its compensations—But considerable ones!"

When they had departed, promising to return very soon—to dinner this time, and see all the "exquisite appartement," Burton came into the room to take away the tea things. His face was a mask as he swept up the cigarette ash, which had fallen upon the William and Mary English lac table, which holds the big lamp, then he carefully carried away the silver ash trays filled with the ends, and returned with them cleaned. Then he coughed slightly.

"Shall I open the window, Sir Nicholas?"

"It is a beastly cold evening."

He put an extra log on the fire and threw the second casement wide.

"You'll enjoy your dinner better now, Sir," he said, and left me shivering.

I wish I were a musician, I could play to myself. I have still my two hands, though perhaps my left shoulder hurts too much to play often. My one eye aches when I read for too long, and the stump below the knee is too tender still to fit the false leg on to, and I cannot, because of my shoulder, use my crutch overmuch, so walking is out of the question. These trifles are perhaps, the cause of my ennui with life.

I suppose such women as those who came to-day fulfill some purpose in the scheme of things. One can dine openly with them at the most exclusive restaurant, and not mind meeting one's relations. They are rather more expensive than the others—pearl necklaces—sables—essence for their motor cars—these are their prices.—They are so decorative, too, and before the war were such excellent tango partners. These three are all of the best families, and their relations stick to them in the background, so they are not altogether déclassé. Maurice says they are the most agreeable women in Paris, and get the last news out of the Generals. They are seen everywhere, and Coralie, the married one, wears a Red Cross uniform sometimes at tea—if she happens to remember to go into a hospital for ten minutes to hold some poor fellow's hand.

Yes, I suppose they have their uses—there are a horde of them, anyway.

To-morrow Maurice is bringing another specimen to divert me—American this time—over here for "war work." Maurice says one of the cleverest adventuresses he has ever met; and I am still irresistible, he assures me, so I must be careful—(for am I not disgustingly rich!)

Burton is sixty years old—He is my earliest recollection. Burton knows the world.

Friday—The American adventuress delighted me. She was so shrewd. Her eyes are cunning and evil—her flesh is round and firm, she is not extremely painted, and her dresses are quite six inches below her knees.

She has two English peers in tow, and any casual Americans of note whom she can secure who will give her facilities in life. She, also, is posing for a 'lady' and 'a virtuous woman,' and an ardent war worker.

All these parasites are the product of the war, though probably they always existed, but the war has been their glorious chance. There is a new verb in America, Maurice says—"To war work"—It means to get to Paris, and have a splendid time.

Their toupé is surprising! To hear this one talk one would think she ruled all the politics of the allies, and directed each General.

Are men fools?—Yes, imbeciles—they cannot see the wiles of woman. Perhaps I could not when I was a human male whom they could love!

Love?—did I say love?

Is there such a thing?—or is it only a sex excitement for the moment!—That at all events is the sum of what these creatures know.

Do they ever think?—I mean beyond planning some fresh adventure for themselves, or how to secure some fresh benefit.

I cannot now understand how a man ever marries one of them, gives his name and his honour into such precarious keeping. Once I suppose I should have been as easy a prey as the rest. But not now—I have too much time to think, I fear. I seem to find some ulterior motive in whatever people say or do.

To-day another American lunched with me, a bright girl, an heiress of the breezy, jolly kind, a good sort before the war, whom I danced with often. She told me quite naturally that she had a German prisoner's thigh bone being polished into an umbrella handle—She had assisted at the amputation—and the man had afterwards died—"A really cute souvenir," she assured me it was going to be!

Are we all mad—?

No wonder the finest and best "go West."—Will they come again, souls of a new race, when all these putrid beings have become extinguished by time? I hope so to God....

These French women enjoy their crepe veils—and their high-heeled shoes, and their short black skirts, even a cousin is near enough for the trappings of woe.—Can any of us feel woe now?—I think not....

Maurice has his uses—Were I a man once more I should despise Maurice—He is so good a creature, such a devoted hanger on of the very rich—and faithful too. Does he not pander to my every fancy, and procure me whatever I momentarily desire?

How much better if I had been killed outright! I loathe myself and all the world.

Once—before the war—the doing up of this flat caused me raptures. To get it quite English—in Paris! Every antiquaire in London had exploited me to his heart's content. I paid for it through the nose, but each bit is a gem. I am not quite sure now what I meant to do with it when finished, occupy it when I did come to Paris—lend it to friends?—I don't remember—Now it seems a sepulchre where I can retire my maimed body to and wait for the end.

Nina once proposed to stay with me here, no one should know, Nina?—would she come now?—How dare they make this noise at the door—what is it?—Nina!

Sunday—it was actually Nina herself—"Poor darling Nicholas," she said. "The kindest fate sent me across—I 'wangled' a passport—really serious war work, and here I am for a fortnight, even in war time one must get a few clothes—"

I could see I was a great shock to her, my attraction for her had gone—I was just "poor darling Nicholas," and she began to be motherly—Nina motherly!—She would have been furious at the very idea once. Nina is thirty-nine years old, her boy has just gone into the flying corps, she is so glad the war will soon be over.

She loves her boy.

She gave me news of the world, our old world of idle uselessness, which is now one of solid work.

"Why have you completely cut yourself off from everything and everybody, ever since you first went out to fight?—Very silly of you."

"When I was a man and could fight, I liked fighting, and never wanted to see any of you again. You all seemed rotters to me, so I spent my leaves in the country or here. Now you seem glorious beings, and I the rotter. I am no use at all—"

Nina came close to me and touched my hand—

"Poor darling Nicholas," she said again.

Something hurt awfully, as I realized that to touch me now caused her no thrill. No woman will ever thrill again when I am near.

Nina does know all about clothes! She is the best-dressed Englishwoman I have ever seen. She has worked awfully well for the war, too, I hear, she deserves her fortnight in Paris.

"What are you going to do, Nina?" I asked her.

She was going out to theatres every night, and going to dine with lots of delicious 'red tabs' whose work was over here, whom she had not seen for a long time.

"I'm just going to frivol, Nicholas, I am tired of work."

Nothing could exceed her kindness—a mother's kindness.

I tried to take an interest in everything she said, only it seemed such aeons away. As though I were talking in a dream.

She would go plodding on at her war job when she got back again, of course, but she, like everyone else, is war weary.

"And when peace comes—it will soon come now probably—what then?"

"I believe I shall marry again."

I jumped—I had never contemplated the possibility of Nina marrying, she has always been a widowed institution, with her nice little house in Queen Street, and that wonderful cook.

"What on earth for?"

"I want the companionship and devotion of one man."

"Anyone in view?"

"Yes—one or two—they say there is a shortage of men, I have never known so many men in my life."

Then presently, when she had finished her tea, she said—

"You are absolutely out of gear, Nicholas—Your voice is rasping, your remarks are bitter, and you must be awfully unhappy, poor boy."

I told her that I was—there was no use in lying.

"Everything is finished," I said, and she bent down and kissed me as she said good-bye—a mother's kiss.

And now I am alone, and what shall I do all the evening? or all the other evenings—? I will send for Suzette to dine.

Night—Suzette—was amusing—. I told her at once I did not require her to be affectionate.

"You can have an evening's rest from blandishments, Suzette."

"Merci!"—and then she stretched herself, kicked up her little feet, in their short-vamped, podgy little shoes, with four-inch heels, and lit a cigarette.

"Life is hard, Mon ami"—she told me—"And now that the English are here, it is difficult to keep from falling in love."

For a minute I thought she was going to insinuate that I had aroused her reflection—I warmed—but no—She had taken me seriously when I told her I required no blandishments.

That ugly little twinge came to me again.

"You like the English?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"They are very bons garçons, they are clean, and they are fine men, they have sentiment, too—Yes, it is difficult not to feel," she sighed.

"What do you do when you fall in love then, Suzette?"

"Mon ami, I immediately go for a fortnight to the sea—one is lost if one falls in love dans le metier—The man tramples then—tramples and slips off—For everything good one must never feel."

"But you have a kind heart Suzette—you feel for me?"

"Hein?"—and she showed all her little white pointed teeth—"Thou?—Thou art very rich, mon chou. Women will always feel for thee!"

It went in like a knife it was so true—.

"I was a very fine Englishman once," I said.

"It is possible, thou art still, sitting, and showing the right profile—and full of chic—and then rich, rich!"

"You could not forget that I am rich, Suzette?"

"If I did I might love you—Jamais!"

"And does the sea help to prevent an attack?"—

"Absence—and I go to a poor place I knew when I was young, and I wash and cook, and make myself remember what la vie dure was—and would be again if one loved—Bah! that does it. I come back cured—and ready only to please such as thou, Nicholas!—rich, rich!"

And she laughed again her rippling gay laugh—

We had a pleasant evening, she told me the history of her life—or some of it—They were ever the same from Lucien's Myrtale.

When all of me is aching—Shall I too, find solace if I go to the sea?

Who knows?

II

I have been through torture this week—The new man wrenches my shoulder each day, it will become straight eventually, he says. They have tried to fit the false leg also, so those two things are going on, but the socket is not yet well enough for anything to be done to my left eye—so that has defeated them. It will be months before any real improvement takes place.

There are hundreds of others who are more maimed than I—in greater pain—more disgusting—does it give them any comfort to tell the truth to a journal?—or are they strong enough to keep it all locked up in their hearts?—I used to care to read, all books bore me now—I cannot take interest in any single thing, and above all, I loathe myself—My soul is angry.

Nina came again, to luncheon this time. It was pouring with rain, an odious day. She told me of her love affairs—as a sister might—Nina a sister!

She can't make up her mind whether to take Jim Bruce or Rochester Moreland, they are both Brigadiers now, Jim is a year younger than she is.

"Rochester is really more my mate, Nicholas," she said, "but then there are moments when I am with him when I am not sure if he would not bore me eventually, and he has too much character for me to suppress—Jim fascinates me, but I only hold him because he is not sure of me—If I marry him he will be, and then I shall have to watch my looks, and remember to play the game all the time, and it won't be restful—above all, I want rest and security."

"You are not really in love with either, Nina?"

"Love?" and she smoothed out the fringe on her silk jersey with her war-hardened hand—the hand I once loved to kiss—every blue vein on it!—"I often, wonder what really is love, Nicholas—I thought I loved you before the war—but, of course, I could not have—because I don't feel anything now—and if I had really loved you, I suppose it would not have made any difference."

Then she realized what she had said and got up and came closer to me.

"That was cruel of me, I did not mean to be—I love you awfully as a sister—always."

"Sister Nina!—well, let us get back to love—perhaps the war has killed it—or it has developed everything, perhaps it now permits a sensitive, delicious woman like you to love two men."

"You see, we have become so complicated"—she puffed smoke rings at me—"One man does not seem to fulfill the needs of every mood—Rochester would not understand some things that Jim would, and vice versa—I do not feel any glamour about either, but it is rest and certainty, as I told you, Nicholas, I am so tired of working and going home to Queen Street alone."

"Shall you toss up?"

"No—Rochester is coming up from the front to-morrow just for the night, I am going to dine with him at Larue's—alone, I shall sample him all the time—I sampled Jim when he was last in London a fortnight ago—"

"You will tell me about it when you have decided, won't you, Nina. You see I have become a brother, and am interested in the psychological aspects of things."

"Of course I will"—then she went on meditatively, her rather plaintive voice low.

"I think all our true feeling is used up, Nicholas—our souls—if we have souls—are blunted by the war agony. Only our senses still feel. When Jim looks at me with his attractive blue eyes, and I see the D.S.O. and the M.C., and his white nice teeth—and how his hair is brushed, and how well his uniform fits, I have a jolly all-overish sensation—and I don't much listen to what he is saying—he says lots of love—and I think I would really like him all the time. Then, when he has gone I think of other things, and I feel he would not understand a word about them, and because he isn't there I don't feel the delicious all-overish sensation, so I rather decide to marry Rochester—there would be such risk—because when you are married to a man, it is possible to get much fonder of him. Jim is a year younger than I am—It would be a strain, perhaps in a year or two—especially if I got fond."

"You had better take the richer," I told her—"Money stands by one, it is an attraction which even the effects of war never varies or lessens," and I could hear that there was bitterness in my voice.

"You are quite right," Nina said, taking no notice of it—"but I don't want money—I have enough for every possible need, and my boy has his own. I want something kind and affectionate to live with."

"You want a master—and a slave."

"Yes."

"Nina, when you loved me—what did you want?"

"Just you, Nicholas—just you."

"Well, I am here now, but an eye and a leg gone, and a crooked shoulder, changes me;—so it is true love—even the emotion of the soul, depends upon material things—"

Nina thought for a while.

"Perhaps not the emotion of the soul—if we have souls?—but what we know of love now certainly does. I suppose there are people who can love with the soul, I am not one of them."

"Well, you are honest, Nina."

She had her coffee and liqueur, she was graceful and composed and refined, either Jim or Rochester will have a very nice wife.

Burton coughed when she had left.

"Out with it, Burton!"

"Mrs. Ardilawn is a kind lady, Sir Nicholas."

"Charming."

"I believe you'd be better with some lady to look after you, Sir—."

"To hell with you. Telephone for Mr. Maurice—I don't want any woman—we can play piquet."

This is how my day ended—.

Maurice and piquet—then the widow and the divorcée for dinner—and now alone again! The sickening rot of it all.

Sunday—Nina came for tea—she feels that I am a great comfort to her in this moment of her life, so full of indecision—It seems that Jim has turned up too, at the Ritz, where Rochester still is, and that his physical charm has upset all her calculations again.

"I am really very worried Nicholas," she said, "and you, who are a dear family friend"—I am a family friend now!—"ought to be able to help me."

"What the devil do you want me to do, Nina?—outset them both, and ask you to marry me?"

"My dearest Nicholas!" it seemed to her that I had suggested that she should marry father Xmas! "How funny you are!"

Once it was the height of her desire—Nina is eight years older than I am—I can see now her burning eyes one night on the river in the June of 1914, when she insinuated, not all playfully, that it would be good to wed.

"I think you had better take Jim my dear, after all. You are evidently becoming in love with him and you have proved to me that the physical charm matters most,—or if you are afraid of that, you had better do as another little friend of mine does when she is attracted—she takes a fortnight at the sea!"

"The sea would be awful in this weather! I should send for both in desperation!" and she laughed and began to take an interest in the furnishings of my flat. She looked over it, and Burton pointed out all its merits to her (My crutch hurts my shoulder so much to-day I did not want to move out of my chair). I could hear Burton's remarks, but they fell upon unheeding ears—Nina is not cut out for a nurse, my poor Burton, if you only knew—!

When she returned to my sitting room tea was in, and she poured it out for me, and then she remarked.

"We have grown so awfully selfish, haven't we, Nicholas, but we aren't such hypocrites as we were before the war. People still have lovers, but they don't turn up their eyes so much at other people having them, as they used. There is more tolerance—the only thing you cannot do is to act publicly so that your men friends cannot defend you—'You must not throw your bonnet over the windmills'—otherwise you can do as you please—."

"You had not thought of taking either Jim or Rochester for a lover to make certain which you prefer?"

Nina looked unspeakably shocked—.

"What a dreadful idea Nicholas!—I am thinking of both seriously, not only to pass the time of day remember."

"That is all lovers are for, then Nina?—I used to think—."

"Never mind what you thought, there is no reason to insult me."

"Nothing was farther from my desire."

Nina's face cleared, as it had darkened ominously.

"What will you do if, having married Rochester, you find yourself bored—Will you send for Jim again?"

"Certainly not, that would be disaster. I shan't plunge until I feel pretty certain I am going to find the water just deep enough, and not too deep—and if I do make a mistake, well I shall have to stick to it."

"By Jove what a philosopher," and I laughed—She poured out a second cup of tea, and then she looked steadily at me, as though studying a new phase of me.

"You are not a bit worse off than Tom Green, Nicholas, and he has not got your money, and Tom is as jolly as anything, and everybody loves him, though he is a hopeless cripple, and can't even look decent, as you will be able to in a year or two. There is no use in having this sentiment about war heroes that would make one put up with their tempers, and their cynicism! Everybody is in the same boat, women and men, we chance being maimed by bombs, and we are losing our looks with rough work—for goodness sake stop being so soured—."

I laughed outright—it was all so true.

Friday—Maurice brings people to play bridge every afternoon now. Nina has gone back to England—having decided to take Jim!

It came about in this way—She flew in to tell me the last evening before she left for Havre. She was breathless running up the stairs, as something had gone wrong with the lift.

"Jim and I are engaged!"

"A thousand congratulations."

"Rochester had a dinner for me on Wednesday night. All the jolliest people in Paris—some of those dear French who have been so nice to us all along, and some of the War Council and the Ryvens, and so on—and, do you know, Nicholas—I heard Rochester telling Madame de Clerté the same story about his bon mot when a shell broke at Avicourt—as I had already heard him tell Admiral Short, and Daisy Ryven!—that decided me—. There was an element of self-glorification in that modest story—and a man who would tell it three times, is not for me! In ten years I should grow into being the listener victim—I could not face it! So I said good-bye to him in the corridor, before up to my room—and I telephoned to Jim, who was in his room on the Cambon side, and he came round in the morning!"

"Was Rochester upset?"

"Rather! but a man of his age—he is forty-two, who can tell a self-story three times is going to get cured soon, so I did not worry."

"And what did Jim say?"

"He was enchanted, he said he knew it would end like that—give a man of forty-two rope enough and he'll be certain to hang himself, he said, and, Oh! Nicholas—Jim is a darling, he is getting quite masterful—I adore him!"

"Senses winning, Nina! Women only like physical masters."

She grew radiant. Never has she seemed so desirable. "I don't care a fig Nicholas! If it is senses, well, then, I know it is the best thing in the World, and a woman of my age can't have everything. I adore Jim! We are going to be married the first moment he can get leave again—and I shall 'wangle' him into being a 'red tab'—he has fought enough."

"And if meanwhile he should get maimed like me—what then, Nina?"

She actually paled.

"Don't be so horrid Nicholas—Jim—Oh! I can't bear it!" and being a strict Protestant, she crossed herself—to avert bad luck!

"We won't think of anything but joy and happiness, Nina, but it is quite plain to me you had better have a fortnight at the sea!"

She had forgotten the allusion, and turned puzzled brown eyes upon me.

"You know—to balance yourself when you feel you are falling in love"—I reminded her.

"Oh! It is all stuff and nonsense! I know now I adore Jim—good-bye Nicholas"—and she hugged me—as a sister—a mother—and a family friend—and was off down the stairs again.

Burton had brought me in a mild gin and seltzer, and it was on the tray, near, so I drank it, and said to myself, "Here is to the Senses—jolly good things"—and then I telephoned to Suzette to come and dine.

There is a mole on the left cheek of Suzette, high up near her eye, there are three black hairs in it—I had never seen them until this morning—c'est fini—je ne puis plus!

Of course we have all got moles with three black hairs in them—and the awful moment is when suddenly they are seen—That is the tragedy of life—disillusion.

I cannot help being horribly introspective, Maurice would agree to whatever I said, so there is no use in talking to him—I rush to this journal, it cannot look at me with fond watery eyes of reproach and disapproval—as Burton would if I let myself go to him.

May 16th—The times have been too anxious to write, it is over two months since I opened this book. But it cannot be, it cannot be that we shall be beaten—Oh! God—why am I not a man again to fight! The raids are continuous—All the fluffies and nearly everyone left Paris in the ticklish March and April times, but now their fears are lulled a little and many have returned, and they rush to cinemas and theatres, to kill time, and jump into the rare taxis to go and see the places where the raid bombs burst, or Bertha shells, and watch the houses burning and the crushed bodies of the victims being dragged out. They sicken me, this rotten crew—But this is not all France—great, dear, brave France—It is only one section of useless society. To-day the Duchesse de Courville-Hautevine came to call upon me—mounted all the stairs without even a wheeze—(the lift gave out again this morning!)—What a personality!—How I respect her! She has worked magnificently since the war began, her hospital is a wonder, her only son was killed fighting gloriously at Verdun.

"You look as melancholy as a sick cat," she told me.

She likes to speak her English—"Of what good Jeune homme! We are not done yet—I have cut some of my relatives who ran away from Paris—Imbeciles! Bertha is our diversion now, and the raids at night—jolly loud things!"—and she chuckled, detaching her scissors which had got caught in the purple woolen jersey she wore over her Red Cross uniform. She is quite indifferent to coquetry, this grande dame of the ancien regime!

"My blessés rejoice in them—Que voulez vous?—War is war—and there is no use in looking blue—Cheer up, young man!"

Then we talked of other things. She is witty and downright, and her every thought and action is kindly. I love la Duchesse—My mother was her dearest friend.

When she had stayed twenty minutes—she came over close to my chair.

"I knew you would be bitter at not being in the fight, my son," she said, patting me with her once beautiful hand, now red and hardened with work, "So I snatched the moments to come to see you. On your one leg you'll defend if the moment should come,—but it won't! And you—you wounded ones, spared—can keep the courage up. Tiens! you can at least pray, you have the time—I have not—Mais le Bon Dieu understands—."

And with that she left me, stopping to arrange her tightly curled fringe (she sticks to all old styles) at the lac mirror by the door. I felt better after she had gone—yes, it is that—God—why can't I fight!

III

Is some nerve being touched by the new treatment? I seem alternately to be numb and perfectly indifferent to how the war is going, and then madly interested. But I am too sensitive to leave my flat for any meals—I drive whenever one of the "fluffies" (this is what Maurice calls the widow, the divorcée and other rejoicers of men's war hearts) can take me in her motor—No one else has a motor—There is no petrol for ordinary people.

"It reminds one of Louis XV's supposed reply to his daughters"—I said to Maurice yesterday. "When they asked him to make them a good road to the Château of their dear Gouvernante, the Duchesse de la Bove—He assured them he could not, his mistresses cost him too much! So they paid for it themselves, hence the 'Chemin des Dames.'"

"What reminds you of what—?" Maurice asked, looking horribly puzzled.

"The fluffies being able to get the petrol—."

"But I don't see, the connection?"

"It was involved—the mistresses got the money which should have made the road in those days, and now—."

Maurice was annoyed with himself; he could not yet see, and no wonder, for it was involved!—but I am angry that the widow and the divorcée both have motors and I none!

"Poor Odette—she hates taxis! Why should she not have a motor?—You are grinchant, mon cher!—since she takes you out, too!"

"Believe me, Maurice, I am grateful, I shall repay all their kindnesses—they have all indicated how I can best do so—but I like to keep them waiting, it makes them more keen."

Maurice laughed again nervously.

"It is divine to be so rich, Nicholas"!

All sorts of people come to talk to me and have tea (I have a small hoard of sugar sent from a friend in Spain). Amongst them an ancient guardsman in some inspection berth here—He, like Burton, knows the world.

He tests women by whether or no they take presents from him, he tells me. They profess intense love which he returns, and then comes the moment (he, like me, is disgustingly rich). He offers them a present, some accept at once, those he no longer considers; others hesitate, and say it is too much, they only want his affection—He presses them, they yield—they too, are wiped off the list—and now he has no one to care for, since he has not been able to find one who refuses his gifts. It would be certainly my case also—were I to try.

"Women"—he said to me last night—"are the only pleasure in life—men and hunting bring content and happiness, work brings satisfaction, but women and their ways are the only pleasure."

"Even when you know it is all for some personal gain?"

"Even so, once you have realized that, it does not matter, you take the joy from another point of view, you have to eliminate vanity out of the affair, your personal vanity is hurt, my dear boy, when you feel it is your possessions, not yourself, they crave, but if you analyse that, it does not take away from the pleasure their beauty gives you—the tangible things are there just as if they loved you—I am now altogether indifferent as to their feelings for me, as long as their table manners are good, and they make a semblance of adoring me. If one had to depend upon their real disinterested love for their kindness to one, then it would be a different matter, and very distressing, but since they can always be caught by a bauble—you and I are fortunately placed, Nicholas."

We laughed our vile laughs together.—It is true—I hate to hear my own laugh. I agree with Chesterfield, who said that no gentleman should make that noise!

As I said before, all sorts of people come to see me, but I seem to be stripping them of externals all the time. What is the good in them? What is the truth in them? Strip me—if I were not rich what would anyone bother with me for? Is anyone worth while underneath?

One or other of the fluffies come almost daily to play bridge with me, and any fellow who is on leave, and the neutrals who have no anxieties, what a crew! It amuses me to "strip" them. The married one, Coralie, has absolutely nothing to charm with if one removes the ambience of success, the entourage of beautiful things, the manicurist and the complexion specialist, the Reboux hats, and the Chanel clothes. She would be a plain little creature, with not too fine ankles,—but that self-confidence which material possessions bring, casts a spell over people.—Coralie is attractive. Odette, the widow, is beautiful. She has the brain of a turkey, but she, too, is exquisitely dressed and surrounded with everything to enhance her loveliness, and the serenity of success has given her magnetism. She announces platitudes as discoveries, she sparkles, and is so ravishing that one finds her trash wit. She thinks she is witty, and you begin to believe it!

Odette can be best stripped, people could like her just for her looks. Alice, the divorcée, appeals to one.—She is gentle and feminine and clinging—she is the cruelest and most merciless of the three, Maurice tells me, and the most difficult to analyse: But most of one's friends would find it hard to stand the test of denuding them of their worldly possessions and outside allurements, it is not only the fluffies, who would come out of not much value!

Oh! the long, long days—and the ugly nights!

One does not sleep very well now, the noise of "Bertha" from six A.M. and the raids at night!—but I believe I grow to like the raids—and last night we had a marvelous experience. I had been persuaded by Maurice to have quite a large dinner party. Madame de Clerté, who is really an amusing personality, courageous and agreeable, and Daisy Ryven, and the fluffies, and four or five men. We were sitting smoking afterwards, listening to de Volé playing, he is a great musician. People's fears are lulled, they have returned to Paris. Numbers of men are being killed,—"The English in heaps—but what will you!" the fluffies said, "they had no business to make that break with the Fifth Army! Oh! No! and, after all, the country is too dull—and we have all our hidden store of petrol. If we must fly at the last moment, why on earth not go to the theatre and try to pass the time!"

de Volé was playing "Madame Butterfly"—when the sirens went for a raid—and almost immediately the guns began—and bombs crashed. One very seldom sees any fear on people's faces now, they are accustomed to the noise. Without asking any of us, de Volé commenced Chopin's Funeral March. It was a very wonderful moment, the explosions and the guns mingling with the splendid chords. We sat breathless—a spell seemed to be upon us all—We listened feverishly. de Volé's face was transfigured. What did he see in the dim light?—He played and played. And the whole tragedy of war—and the futility of earthly interests—the glory, the splendour and the agony seemed to be brought home to us. From this, as the noise without became less loud, he glided into Schubert, and so at last ceased when the "all clear" commenced to rend the air. No one had spoken a word, and then Daisy Ryven laughed—a queer little awed laugh. She was the only Englishwoman there.

"We are keyed up," she said.

And when they had all gone I opened my window wide and breathed in the black dark night. Oh! God—what a rotter I am.

Friday—Maurice has a new suggestion—he says I should write a book—he knows I am becoming insupportable, and he thinks if he flatters me enough I'll swallow the bait, and so be kept quiet and not try him so much.—A novel?—A study of the causes of altruism? What?—I feel—yes, I feel a spark of interest. If it could take me out of myself—I shall consult the Duchesse—I will tell Burton to telephone and find out if I can see her this afternoon. She sometimes takes half an hour off between four and five to attend to her family.

Yes—Burton says she will see me and will send me one of her Red Cross cars to fetch me, then I can keep my leg up.

I rather incline to a treatise upon altruism and the philosophical subjects. I fear if I wrote a novel it would be saturated by my ugly spirit, and I should hate people to read it. I must get that part of me off in my journal, but a book about—Altruism?

I must have a stenographer of course, a short-hand typist, if I do begin this thing. There are some English ones here no doubt. I do not wish to write in French—Maurice must find me a suitable one.—I won't have anything young and attractive. In my idiotic state she might get the better of me! The idea of some steady employment quite bucks me up.

I felt rather jarred when I arrived at the Hotel Courville—the paving across the river is bad; but I found my way to the Duchesse's own sitting room on the first floor—the only room apparently left not a ward—and somehow the smell of carbolic had not penetrated here. It was too hot, and only a little window was open.

How wonderfully beautiful these eighteenth century rooms are! What grace and charm in the panelling—what dignity in the proportions! This one, like all rooms of women of the Duchesse's age, is too full—crammed almost, with gems of art, and then among them, here and there, a shocking black satin stuffed and buttoned armchair, with a bit of woolwork down its centre, and some fringe! And her writing table!—the famous one given by Louis XV to the ancestress, who refused his favours—A mass of letters and papers, and reports, a bottle of creosote and a feather! A servant in black, verging upon ninety, brought in the tea, and said Madame la Duchesse would be there immediately—and she came.

Her twinkling eyes kindly as ever "Good day Nicholas," she said and kissed me on both cheeks, "Thou art thy mother's child—Va!—And I thank thee for the fifty thousand francs for my blessés—I say no more—Va!—."

Her scissors got caught in her pocket, not the purple jersey this time, and she played with them for a minute.

"Thou art come for something—out with it!"

"Shall I write a book?, that's it. Maurice thinks it might divert me—What do you think?"

"One must consider," and she began pouring out the tea, "paper is scarce—I doubt, my son, if what you would inscribe upon it would justify the waste—but still—as a soulagement—an asperine so to speak—perhaps—yes. On what subject?"

"That is what I want your advice about, a novel?—or a study upon Altruism, or—or—something like that?"

She chuckled and handed me my tea, thin tea and a tiny slice of black bread, and a scrape of butter. There is no cheating of the regulations here, but the Sevres cup gave me satisfaction.

"You have brought me your bread coupon, I hope?" she interrupted with,—"if you eat without it one of my household has less!"

I produced it.

"Two days old will do here," then she became all interest in my project again and chuckled anew.

"Not a novel my son, at your age and with your temperament, it would arouse emotions in you if you created them in your characters, you are better without them.—No!—Something serious; Altruism as well as another, by all means!"

"I expected you to say that, you are always so practical and kind, then we will choose a research subject to keep me busy."

"Why not the history of Blankshire, your old county where the Thormondes have sat since the conquest—hein?"

This delighted me, but I saw the impossibility. "I cannot get at the necessary reference books, and it is impossible to receive anything from England."

She realized this before I spoke.

"No—philosophy it must be—or your pet hobby, the furniture of your William and Mary!"

This seemed the best of all, and I decided in a moment. This shall be my subject. I really know something of William and Mary furniture! So we settled it. Then she became reflective.

"The news is très grave to-day, my son," she whispered softly, "the fearful ones predict that the Boche will be within range in a few days.—Why not leave Paris?"

"Are you going, Duchesse?"

"I,—Mon Dieu!—Of course not!—I must stay to get my Blessés out—if the worst should come—but I never believe it.—Let the cowards flee—. Some of my relatives have gone again. Those I speak to will have become a minority when peace arrives, it would seem!"—then she frowned angrily. "Many are so splendid—devoted, untiring, but there are some—!—Mon Dieu! the girls play tennis at the tix aux pigeons!—and the Germans are sixty-five kilometers from Paris!"

I did not speak, and then, as though I had said something disparaging and she must defend them—"But you must not judge them hardly—No!—it is not possible with our National temperament that young girls of the world can nurse men—No—No—and our ministry of War won't employ women—what can they do—ask yourself, what can they do?—but wait and pray! Other nations must not judge us—our men know what they want of us—yes, yes—"

"Of course they do."

"My niece Madelaine—a lighthead—dragged me to the Ritz to lunch last week, before the wild rush cleared them off again—Mon Dieu! what a sight there in that restaurant!—Olivier and the waiters are the only things of dignity left! The women dressed to the eyes as Red Cross nurses. Some Americans, and, yes, French—nursing the well English officers I must believe—no nearer wounded than that!—floating veils, painted lips—high heels—Heavens! it filled me with rage—I who know the devoted and good of both nations who are not seen, and you English—. But there it is easy for you with your temperament to be good and really work—France is full of sensible kind Americans and English—but those in Paris—they make me sick! Quarter of an hour twice a day—to have the right to a passport to come—and to wear a uniform—Pah! Sick, sick!—"

I thought of the fluffies!—they too played at something the first year of the war, but now have given up even the pretence of that.

The Duchesse was still angry.

"My nephew Charles, le Prince de Vimont, eats chicken and cutlets on the meatless days, he told me with pride, his maître d'hôtel—he of the one eye—like thou, Nicholas, is able to procure plenty on the day before from friends in the trade, and with ice—Mon Dieu!—and I pay twenty-eight francs apiece for the best poulets for my blessés for extra rations!—and ice!—impossible to procure—. Oh! I would punish them all, choke them with their own meat—it is they who should be "food for the guns" as you English say,—they, these few disgrace our brave France, and make the other nations laugh at us."

I tried to assure her that no one laughed, and that we all understood and worshipped the spirit of France, that it was only the few, and that we were not deceived, but I could not calm her.

"It makes me weep" at last she said and I could not comfort her.

"Heloise de Tavantaine—my Cousin's Jew daughter-in-law—paid four thousand francs for a new evening dress, which did not cover a tenth of her fat body—Four thousand francs would have given my blessés—Ah!—well—I rage, I rage."

Then she checked herself—.

"But why do I say this to thee Nicholas?—because I am sore—it is ever thus—we are all human, and must cry to someone."

So after all there is some meaning in my journal.

"One must cry to someone!"

Burton is delighted that I shall write a book!—He wrote at once to my aunt Emmeline to tell her that I was better. I have her letter with congratulations in it to-day. Burton does the correspondence with my few relations, all war working hard in England. I am becoming quite excited, I long to begin, but there is no use until Maurice finds me a stenographer. He has heard of two. One a Miss Jenkins, aged forty—sounds good, but she can only give three hours a day—and I must have one at my beck and call—There is a second one, a Miss Sharp—but she is only twenty-three—plain though, Maurice says, and wears horn spectacles—that should not attract me! She makes bandages all the evening, but is obliged to work for her living so could come for the day. She is not out of a job, because she is very expert, but she does not like her present one. I would have to pay her very highly Maurice says—I don't mind that, I want the best.—I had better see Miss Sharp, and judge if I can stand her. She may have a personality I could not work with. Maurice must bring her to-morrow.

The news to-night is worse.—The banks have sent away all their securities.—But I shall not leave—one might as well die in a bombardment as any other way. The English Consul has to know all the names of the English residents in case of evacuation. But I will not go.

Bertha is making a most fiendish noise, there were two raids last night,—and she began at six this morning—one gets little sleep. I have a one horse Victoria now, driven by Methusala; I picked Maurice up at the Ritz this evening at nine o'clock—there was not a human soul to be seen in the Rue de la Paix, or the Place Vendôme, or the Rue Castiglione—a city of the dead—And the early June sky full of peace and soft light.

What does it all mean?

IV

Maurice brought Miss Sharp to-day to interview me. I do not like her much, but the exhibition she gave me of her speed and accuracy in short-hand satisfied me and made me see that I should be a fool to look further. So I have engaged her. She is a small creature, palish with rather good bright brown hair—She wears horn rimmed spectacles with yellow glasses in them so I can't see her eyes at all. I judge people by their eyes. Her hands look as if she had done rather a lot of hard work—they are so very thin. Her clothes are neat but shabby—that is not the last look like French women have—but as if they had been turned to "make do"—I suppose she is very poor. Her manner is icily quiet. She only speaks when she is spoken to. She is quite uninteresting.

It is better for me to have a nonentity—then I can talk aloud my thoughts without restriction. I am to give her double what she is getting now—2000 francs a month—war price.

Some colour came into her cheeks when I offered that and she hesitated,

I said "Don't you think it is enough?"

She answered so queerly.

"I think it is too much, and I was wondering if I would be able to accept it. I want to."

"Then do."

"Very well—I will of course do my very best to earn it"—and with that she bowed and left me.

Anyhow she won't make a noise.

Nina writes since she has married Jim—which she did just before the offensive in March—she has been too happy—or too anxious, to remember her friends—even dear old ones—but now fortunately Jim is wounded in the ankle bone which will keep him at home for two months so she has a little leisure.

"You can't think, Nicholas, what a different aspect the whole war took on when I knew Jim was in the front line—I adore him—and up to now I have managed to keep him adoring me—but I can see I'll have to be careful if he is going to be with me long at a time."

So it would seem that Nina had not obtained the rest and security she hoped for.

I hope my writing a book will rest me. I have arranged all my first chapter in my head—and to-morrow I begin.

June 26th—Miss Sharp came punctually at ten—she had a black and white cotton frock on—There is nothing of her—she is so slight—(a mass of bones probably in evening dress—but thank goodness I shall not see her in evening dress,) she goes at six—She is to have her lunch here—Burton has arranged it. An hour off for lunch which she can have on a tray in the small salon, which I have had arranged for her work room.—Of course it won't take her an hour to eat—but Burton says she must have that time, it is always done. It is a great nuisance for perhaps when 12:30 comes I shall just be in the middle of an inspiration and I suppose off she'll fly like the housemaids used when the servants' hall bell went at home. But I can't say anything.

I was full of ideas and the beginning of my first chapter spouted out, and when Miss Sharp had read it over to me I found she had not made any mistake. That is a mercy.

She went away and typed it, and then had her lunch—and I had mine, but Maurice dropped in and mine took longer than hers—it was half past two when I rang my hand bell for her (it is a jolly little silver one I bought once in Cairo) She answered it promptly—the script in her hand.

"I have had half an hour with nothing to do," she said—"Can you not give me some other work which I can turn to, if this should happen again?"

"You can read a book—there are lots in the book case" I told her—"Or I might leave you some letters to answer."

"Thank you, that would be best"—(She is conscientious evidently).

We began again.

She sits at a table with her notebook, and while I pause she is absolutely still—that is good. I feel she won't count more than a table or chair. I am quite pleased with my work. It is awfully hot to-day and there is some tension in the air—as though something was going to happen. The news is the same—perhaps slightly better.—I am going to have a small dinner to-night. The widow and Maurice and Madame de Clerté—just four and we are going to the play. It is such a business for me to go I seldom turn out.—Maurice is having a little supper in his rooms at the Ritz for us. It is my birthday—I am thirty-one years old.

Friday—What an evening that 26th of June! The theatre was hot and the cramped position worried me so—and the lights made my eye ache—Madame de Clerté and I left before the end and ambled back to the Ritz in my one horse Victoria and went and sat in Maurice's room. We talked of the situation, and the effect of the Americans coming in, bucking everyone up—we were rather cheerful. Then the sirens began—and the guns followed just as Maurice and Odette got back—They seemed unusually loud—and we could hear the bits of shrapnel falling on the terrace beneath us, Odette was frightened and suggested going into the cellar—but as Maurice's rooms are only on the second floor, we did not want to take the trouble.

Fear has a peculiar effect upon some people—Odette's complexion turned grey and she could hardly keep her voice steady. I wondered how soon she would let restraint slip from her and fly out of the room to the cellar. Madame de Clerté was quite unmoved.

Then the dramatic happened—Bang!—the whole house shook and the glass of the window crashed in fragments—and Maurice turned out the one light—and lifted a corner of the thick curtain to peep out.

"I believe they got the Colome Vendôme" he said awed—and as he spoke another bomb fell on the Ministaìre beside us—and some of the splinters shot into space and buried themselves in our wall.

We were all blown across the room—and Madame de Clerté and I fell in a heap together by the door, which gave way outwards—Odette's shrieks made us think that she was hurt, but she was not, and subsided into a gibbering prayer—Maurice helped Madame de Clerté to rise and I turned on the torch I keep in my pocket, for a minute. I was not conscious of any pain. We sat in the dark and listened to the commotion beneath us for some time, and the crashing bombs but never one so near again.—Maurice's voice soothing Odette was the only sound in our room.

Then Madame de Clerté laughed softly and lit a cigarette.

"A near thing that, Nicholas!" she said—"Let us go down now and see who is killed, and where the explosion actually occurred—The sight is quite interesting you know you can believe me."

"When Bertha hit the —— two days ago, we rushed for taxis to go down to see the place—Coralie—has petrol for her motor since two weeks you know"—and she smiled wickedly—"Monsieur le Ministre must show his gratitude somehow mustn't he?—Coralie is such a dear—Yes—?—So some of us packed in with her—we were quite a large party—and when we got there they were trying to extinguish the fire, and bringing out the bodies—You ought to come with us sometime when we go on these trips—anything for a change."

These women would not have looked on at the sufferings of a mouse before the war—.

The sight in the hall when we did arrive there after the "all clear" went—was remarkable—the great glass doors of the salon blown in and all the windows broken—and the Place Vendôme a mass of debris—not a pane whole there I should think.

But nobody seems very much upset—these things are all in the days work—.

I wonder if in years to come we shall remember the queer recklessness which has developed in almost everyones mentality, or shall we forget about the war and go on just as we were before—Who knows?

I said to Miss Sharp this morning—

"What do you do in the evenings when you leave here"?

I had forgotten for a moment that Maurice had told me that she makes bandages. She looked at me and her manner froze—I can't think why I felt she thought I had no right to question her—I say "looked at me"—but I am never quite sure what her eyes are doing, because she never takes off her yellow glasses—Those appear to be gazing at me at all events.

"I make bandages."

"Aren't you dead tired after working all day with me?"

"I have not thought about it—the bandages are badly needed."

Her pencil was in her hand, and the block ready—she evidently did not mean to go on conversing with me. This attitude of continuous diligence on her part has begun to irritate me. She never fidgets—just works all the time.

I'll ask Burton what he thinks of her at luncheon to-day—As I said before, Burton knows the world.

"What do you think of my typist, Burton?"

He was putting a dish of make-believe before me—it is a meatless day—my one-legged cook is an artist but he thinks me a fool because I won't let him cheat—our want of legs makes us friendly though.

"And with a brother in the trade I could get Monsieur chickens and what he would wish!" he expostulates each week.

"A-hem"—Burton croaked.

I repeated the question.

"The young lady works very regular."

"Yes—That is just it—a kind of a machine."

"She earns her money Sir Nicholas."

"Of course she does—I know all that—But what do you think of her?"

"Beg pardon Sir Nicholas—I don't understand?"

I felt irritated.

"Of course you do—What kind of a creature I mean—?"

"The young lady don't chatter Sir—She don't behave like bits of girls."

"You approve of her then Burton?"

"She's been here a fortnight only, Sir Nicholas, you can't tell in the time"—and that is all I could get out of him—but I felt the verdict when he did give it would be favourable.

Insignificant little Miss Sharp—!

What shall I do with my day—? that is the question—my rotten useless idle day?—I have no more inspiration for my book—besides Miss Sharp has to type the long chapter I gave her yesterday. I wonder if she knows anything about William and Mary furniture really?—she never launches a remark.

Her hands are very red these last days—does making bandages redden the hands?

I wonder what colour her eyes are—one can't tell with that blurred yellow glass—.

Suzette came in just as I wrote that; she seldom turns up in the afternoon. She caught sight of Miss Sharp typing through the open door.

"Tiens!" she spit at me—"Since when?"

"I am writing a book, Suzette."

"I must see her face," and without waiting for permission, Suzette flounced into the small salon.

I could hear her shrill little voice asking Miss Sharp to be so good as to give her an envelope—She must write an address! I watched her—Miss Sharp handed her one, and went on with her work.

Suzette returned, closing the door, without temper, behind her.

"Wouff!" she announced to me—"No anxiety there—an Anglaise—not appetizing—not a fausse maigre like us, as thin as a hairpin! Nothing for thou Nicholas—and Mon Dieu!—she does the family washing by her hands—I know! mine look like that when I have taken one of my fortnights at the sea!"

"You think it is washing?—I was wondering—."

"Does she take off her glasses ever, Nicholas?"

"No perhaps she has weak light eyes. One never can tell!"

Suzette was not yet quite at ease about it all—. I was almost driven to ask Miss Sharp to remove her glasses to reassure her.

Women are jealous even of one-legged half blind men! I would like to ask my cook if he has the same trouble—but—Oh! I wish anything mattered!

Suzette showed affection for me after this—and even passion! I would be quite good-looking she said—when I should be finished. Glass eyes were so well made now—"and as for legs!—truly my little cabbage, they are as nimble as a goat's!"

Of course I felt comforted when she had gone.

The hot days pass—Miss Sharp has not asked for a holiday, she plods along, we do a great deal of work—and she writes all my letters. And there are days when I know I am going to be busy with my friends, when I tell her she need not come—there was a whole week at the end of July. Her manner never alters, but when Burton attempted to pay her she refused to take the cheque.

"I did not earn that" she said.

I was angry with Burton because he did not insist.

"It was just, Sir Nicholas."

"No, it was not, Burton—If she did not work here, she was out of pocket not working anywhere else. You will please add the wretched sum to this week's salary."

Burton nodded stubbornly, so I spoke to Miss Sharp myself.

"It was my business as to whether I worked or did not work for a week—therefore you are owed payment in any case—that is logic——."

A queer red came into her transparent skin, her mouth shut firmly—I knew that I had convinced her, and that yet for some reason she hated having to take the money.

She did not even answer, just bowed with that strange aloofness that is not insolent. Her manner is never like a person of the lower classes, trying to show she thinks she is an equal. It has exactly the right note—perfectly respectful as one who is employed, but with the serene unselfconsciousness that only breeding gives. Shades of manner are very interesting to watch. Somehow I know that Miss Sharp, in her washed cotton, with her red little hands, is a lady.

I have not seen my dear Duchesse lately—she has been down to one of her country places—where she sends her convalescents, but she is returning soon. She gives me pleasure—.

August 30th—The interest in the book has flagged lately—I could not think of a thing, so I proposed to Miss Sharp to have a holiday. She accepted the fortnight without enthusiasm. Now she is back and we have begun again—Still I have no flair—Why do I stick to it?—Just because I have said to the Duchesse that I will finish it?——I have an uneasy feeling that I do not want to probe my real reason—I would like to lie even to this Journal. Lots of fellows have been upon the five days' leave lately, things are going better—they jolly one, and I like to see them, but after they go I feel more of a rotten beast than ever. The only times I forget are when Maurice brings the fluffies to dine with me—when they rush up to Paris from Deauville. We drink champagne—(they love to know how much it costs) and I feel gay as a boy—and then in the night I have once or twice reached out for my revolver. They have all gone back to Deauville now.

Perhaps it is Miss Sharp who irritates me with her eternal diligence—What is her life—who are her family? I would like to know but I will not ask—I sit and think and think what to write about in my book. I have almost come to the end of grinding out facts about Walnut and ball fringe—and she sits taking it all down in short-hand, never raising her head, day after day—.

Her hair is pretty—that silky sort of nut brown with an incipient wave in it—her head is set on most gracefully, I must admit, and the complexion is very pale and transparent—But what a firm mouth!—Not cold though—only firm. I have never seen her smile. The hands are well shaped really—awfully well shaped, if one watches them—How long would it take to get them white again I wonder? She has got good feet, too, thin like the hands—. How worn her clothes look—does she never have a new dress—?

Yes Burton, I will see Madame de Clerté—.

Solonge de Clerté is a philosopher—she has her own aims—but I do not know them.

"Writing a book, Nicholas?" There was the devil of a twinkle in her eye—"There is a poor boy wounded in the leg who would make a perfect secretary if you are not satisfied."

I grew irritated—.

"I am quite satisfied"—we heard the noise of the typing machine from beyond—these modern doors allow nothing to be unknown.

"Young, is she?" Madame de Clerté asked turning her glance in that direction.

"I don't know and don't care—she types well"—.

"Hein?"

She saw that I was becoming enraged.—My dinners are good and the war is not yet over—.

"We shall all be terribly interested—yes—when we read the result—."

"Probably"—.

Then she told me of complications occurring about Coralie's husband.

"Of an insanity to attempt the three at once" she sighed—.

And now I can turn to my journal again—Good God—the last pages have all been about Miss Sharp—ridiculous, exasperating Miss Sharp! did I write ridiculous?—No—it is I who am ridiculous—I shall go for a drive—!

God! what is the meaning of it all—!

I have been in hell——I came in from my drive very quietly, it was early, a quarter to six, Miss Sharp goes at six—It was a horribly chilly evening and Burton had lit a bright wood fire—and I suppose its crackling prevented my hearing the sounds which were coming from the next room for a minute. I sat down in my chair—.

What was that?—the roucoulements of a dove?—No, a woman's voice cooing foolish love words in French and English—and a child's treble gurgling fondness back to her. It seemed as if my heart stopped beating—as if every nerve in my spine quivered—a tremendous emotion of I know not what convulsed me.—I lay and listened and suddenly I felt my cheek wet with tears—then some shame, some anger shook me, and I started to my feet, and hobbled to the door which was ajar—I opened it wide—there was Miss Sharp with the concierge's daughter's baby on her lap fondling it—the creature may be six months old. Her horn spectacles lay on the table. She looked up at me, the slightest flash of timidity showing—but her eyes—Oh! God! the eyes of the Madonna—heavenly blue, tender as an angel's—soft as a doe's—. I could have cried aloud with some pain in the soul—and so that brute part of me spoke—.

"How dare you make this noise"?—I said rudely—"do you not know that I have given orders for complete quiet"—.

She rose, holding the child with the greatest dignity—The picture she made could be in the Sistine Chapel.

"I beg your pardon" she said in a voice which was not quite steady—"I did not know you had returned, and Madame Bizot asked me to hold little Augustine while she went to the next floor—it shall not occur again!"

I longed to stay and gaze at them both—I would have liked to have touched the baby's queer little fat fingers—I would have liked—Oh—I know not what—And all the time Miss Sharp held the child protectively, as though something evil would come from me and harm it.—Then she turned and carried it out of the room—and I went back into my sitting-room and flung myself down in my chair—.

What had I done—Beast—brute—What had I done?

And will she never come back again?—and will life be emptier than ever—?

I could kill myself—.

It shall not be only Suzette but six others for supper to-night—.

Five a.m.—The dawn is here and it is not the rare sound of an August pigeon that I am listening to, but the tender cooing of a woman and a child—God, how can I get it out of my ears.

V

This morning I feel as if I could hardly bear it until Miss Sharp arrives—I dressed early, ready to begin a new chapter although I have not an idea in my head, and, as the time grows nearer, it is difficult for me to remain still here in my chair.

Have I been too impossible?—Will she not turn up?—and if she does not, what steps can I take to find her?—Maurice is at Deauville with the rest, and I do not know Miss Sharp's home address—nor if she has a telephone—probably not. My heart beats—I have every feeling of excitement as stupid as a woman! I analyse it all now, how mental emotion reacts on the physical—even the empty socket of my eye aches—I could hardly control my voice when Burton began a conversation about my orders for the day just now.

"You would not be wishin' for the company of your Aunt Emmeline, Sir Nicholas"?—he asked me—.

"Of course not, Burton, you old fool—"

"You seem so much more restless, sir—lately—"

"I am restless—please leave me alone."

He coughed and retired.

Now I am listening again—it wants two minutes to the hour—she is never late.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten—. It feels as if the blood would burst the veins—I cannot write.

She came after all, only ten minutes beyond her usual time, but they seemed an eternity when I heard the ring and Burton's slow step. I could have bounded from my chair to open the door myself.—It was a telegram! How this always happens when one is expecting anyone with desperate anxiety—A telegram from Suzette.

"I shall return to-night, Mon Chou."

Her cabbage!—Bah! I never want to see her again—.

Miss Sharp must have entered when the door was opened for the telegram, for I had begun to feel pretty low again when I heard her knock at the door of the sitting-room.

She came in and up to my chair as usual—but she did not say her accustomary cold good morning. I looked up—the horn spectacles were over her eyes again, and the rest of her face was very pale—while there was something haughty in the carriage of her small head, it seemed to me. Her eternal pad and pencil were in her little thin, red hands.

"Good morning"—I said tentatively, she made a slight inclination as much as to say—"I recognize you have spoken," then she waited for me to continue.

I felt an egregious ass, I knew I was nervous as a bird, I could not think of anything to say—I, Nicholas Thormonde, accustomed to any old thing! nervous of a little secretary!

"Er—would you read me aloud the last chapter we finished"—I barked at last lamely.

She turned to fetch the script from the other room—.

I must apologize to her, I knew.

She came back and sat down stiffly, prepared to begin.

"I am sorry I was such an uncouth brute yesterday," I said—"It was good of you to come back—. Will you forgive me?"

She bowed again. I almost hated her at that moment, she was making me feel so much—A foolish arrogance rose in me—

"We had better get to work I suppose," I went on pettishly.

She began to read—how soft her voice is, and how perfectly cultivated.—Her family must be very refined gentlefolk—ordinary English typists have not that indescribable distinction of tone.

What voices mean to one!—The delight of that exquisite sound of refinement in the pronunciation. Miss Sharp never misplaces an inflection or slurs a word, she never uses slang, and yet there is nothing pedantic in her selection of language—it is just as if her habitual associates were all of the same class as herself, and that she never heard coarse speech.—Who can she be—?

The music of her reading calmed me—how I wish we could be friends—!

"How old is Madame Bizot's grandchild?" I asked abruptly, interrupting.

"Six months," answered Miss Sharp without looking up.

"You like children?"

"Yes—."

"Perhaps you have brothers and sisters?"

"Yes—."

I knew that I was looking at her hungrily—and that she was purposely keeping her lids lowered—.

"How many?"

"Two—."

The tone said, "I consider your questions impertinent—."

I went on—

"Brothers?"

"One brother."

"And a sister?"

"Yes."

"How old?"

"Eleven and thirteen."

"That is quite a gap between your ages then?"

She did not think it necessary to reply to this—there was the faintest impatience in the way she moved the manuscript.

I was so afraid to annoy her further in case she should give me notice to go, that I let her have her way, and returned to work.

But I was conscious of her presence—thrillingly conscious of her presence all the morning. I never once was able to take the work naturally, it was will alone which made me grind out the words.

There was no sign of nervousness in Miss Sharp's manner—I simply did not exist for her—I was a bore, a selfish useless bore of an employer, who was paying her twice as much as anyone else would, and she must in return give the most perfect service. As a man I had no meaning. As a wounded human being she had no pity for me—but I did not want her pity—what did I want?—I cannot write it—I cannot face it—. Am I to have a new torment in my life?—Desiring the unattainable?—Eating my heart out; not that woman can never really love me again, but that, well or ill, the consideration of one woman is beyond my reach—.

Miss Sharp is not influenced because I am or am not a cripple—If I were as I was when I first put on my grenadier's uniform, I should still not exist for her probably—she can see the worthless creature that I am—Need I always be so?—I wish to God I knew.

Night.

She worked with her usual diligence the entire day almost, not taking the least notice of me, until at five o'clock when my tea came I rang for her—Perhaps it was the irritation reacting upon my sensitive wrenched nerves, but I felt pretty rotten, my hands were damp—another beastly unattractive thing, which as a rule does not happen to me—I asked her to pour out the tea.

"If you will be so kind," I said—"I have let Burton go out"—Mercifully this was true—she came in as a person would who knew you had a right to command—you could not have said if she minded or no.

When she was near me I felt happier for some reason.

She asked me how I took my tea—and I told her—.

"Are you not going to have some with me?" I pleaded.

"Mine is already on my table in the next room—thank you"—and she rose.

In desperation I blurted out—.

"Please—do not go!—I don't know why, but I feel most awfully rotten to-day."

She sat down again and poured out her cup.

"If you are suffering shall I read to you?" she said—"It might send you to sleep—" and somehow I fancied that while her firm mouth never softened, perhaps the eyes behind the horn spectacles might not be so stony. And yet with it all something in me resented her pity, if she felt any. Physical suffering produces some weaknesses which respond to sympathy, and the spirit rages at the knowledge that one has given way. I never felt so mad in all my year of hell that I cannot be a man and fight—as I did at that moment.

A French friend of mine said—In English books people were always having tea—handing cups of tea! Tea, tea—every chapter and every scene—tea! There is a great deal of truth in it—tea seems to bring the characters together—at tea time people talk, it is the excuse to call at that hour of leisure. We are too active as a nation to meet at any other time in the day, except for sport—So tea is our link and we shall go down through the ages as tea fiends—because our novelists who portray life accurately, chronicle that most of the thrilling scenes of our lives pass among tea cups!—I ventured to say all this to Miss Sharp by way of drawing her into conversation.

"What could one describe as the French doing most often?"—I asked her—.

She thought a moment.

"They do not make excuses for anything they do, they have not to have a pretext for action as we have—They are much less hypocritical and self-conscious."

I wanted to make her talk—.

"Why are we such hypocrites?"

"Because we have set up an impossible standard for ourselves, and hate to show each other that we cannot act up to it."

"Yes, we conceal every feeling—We show indifference when we feel interest—We pretend we have come on business when we have come simply to see someone we are attracted by—."

She let the conversation drop. This provoked me, as her last remark showed how far from stupid she is.

That nervous feeling overcame me again—Confound the woman!

"Please read," I said at last in desperation, and I closed my one eye.

She picked up a book—it happened to be a volume of de Musset—and she read at random—her French is as perfect as her English—The last thing I remember was "Mimi Pinson"—and when I awoke it was past six o'clock and she had gone home.

I wonder how many of us, since the war, know the desolation of waking—alone and in pain—and helpless—Of course there must be hundreds. If I am a rotter and a coward about suffering, at all events it does not come out in words—and perhaps it is because I am such a mixture that I am able to write it in this journal—If I were purely English I should not be able to let myself go even here—.

Suzette came to dinner—I thought how vulgar she looked—and that if her hands were white they were podgy and the nails short. The three black hairs irritated my cheek when she kissed me—I was brutal and moved my head in irritation—.

"Tiens?! Mon Ami!"—she said and pouted.

"Amuse me!" I commanded—.

"So! it is not love then, Nicholas, thou desirest—Bear!"

"Not in the least—I shall never want love again probably. Divert me!—tell me—tell me of your scheming little mouse's brain, and your kind little heart—How is it 'dans le metier'?"

Suzette settled herself on the sofa, curled up among the pillows like a plump little tabby cat. She lit a cigarette—.

"Very middling," she whiffed—"Cases of love where all my good counsel remains untaken—a madness for drugs—very foolish—A drug—yes to try—but to continue!—Mon Dieu! they will no longer make fortunes 'dans le metier'—"

"When you have made your fortune, Suzette, what will you do with it?"

"I shall buy that farm for my mother—I shall put Georgine into a convent for the nobility, and arrange a large dot for her—and for me?—I shall gamble in a controlled way at Monte Carlo—."

"You won't marry then, Suzette?"

"Marry!" she laughed a shrill laugh—"For why, Nicholas?—A tie-up to one man, hein?—to what good?—and yet who can say—to be an honored wife is the one experience I do not know yet!"—she laughed again—.

"And who is Georgine—you have not spoken of her before, Suzette?"

She reddened a little under her new terra cotta rouge.

"No?—Oh! Georgine is my little first mistake—but I have her beautifully brought up, Nicholas—with the Holy Mother at St. Brieux. I am then her Aunt—so to speak—the wife of a small shop keeper in Paris, you must know—She adores me—and I give all I can to St. Georges-des-Près—. Georgine will be a lady and marry the Mayor's son—one day—."

Something touched me infinitely. This queer little demi-mondaine mother—her thoughts set on her child's purity, and the conventional marriage for her—in the future. Her plebeian, insolent little round face so kindly in repose.

I respect Suzette far more than my friends of the world—.

When she left—it was perhaps in bad taste, but I gave her a quite heavy four figure cheque.

"For the education of Georgine—Suzette."

She flung her arms round my neck and kissed me frankly on both cheeks, and tears were brimming over in her merry black eyes.

"Thou hast after all a heart, and art after all a gentleman, Nicholas—Va!—"—and she ran from the room.

VI

For two days after I last wrote, I tried not to see Miss Sharp—I gave short moments to my book—and she answered a number of business letters. She knows most of my affairs now,—Burton transmits all the bills and papers to her.—I can hear them talking through the thin door. The excitement of that time I was so rude seems to have used up my vitality, an utter weariness is upon me, I have hardly stirred from my chair.

The ancient guardsman, George Harcourt, came to lunch yesterday. He was as cynically whimsical as ever—He has a new love—an Italian—and until now she has refused all his offers of presents, so he is taking a tremendous interest in her—.

"In what an incredible way the minds of women work, Nicholas!" he said—"They have frequently a very definite aim underneath, but they 'grasshopper'—."

I looked puzzled I suppose—.

"To 'grasshopper' is a new verb!" he announced—"Daisy Ryven coined it.—It means just as you alight upon a subject and begin tackling it, you spring to another one—These lovely American war workers 'grasshopper' continuously.—It is impossible to keep pace with them."

I laughed.

"Yet they seem to have quite a definite aim—to get pleasure out of life."

[Alathea (Harriet Hammond) disguised with colored glasses and plain clothes arrives to take up her duties as secretary to Sir Nicholas (Lew Cody). (A scene from Elinor Glyn's production "Man and Maid" for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer)]

"To 'grasshopper' does not prevent pleasure to the grasshopper.—It is only fatiguing to the listener. You can have no continued sensible conversation with any of these women—they force you to enjoy only their skins—"

"Can the Contessa talk?"

"She has the languour of the South—She does not jump from one subject to another, she is frankly only interested in love."

"Honestly, George—do you believe there is such a thing as real love?"

"We have discussed this before, Nicholas—You know my views—but I am hoping Violetta will change them. She has just begun to ask daily if I love her"—

"Why do women always do that—even one's little friends continually murmur the question?"

"It is the working of their subconscious minds——Damn good cigars these, my dear boy—pre-war eh?——Yes it is to justify their surrender—They want to be assured in words that you adore them—because you see the actions of love really prove nothing of love itself. A stranger who has happened to appeal to the senses can call them forth quite as successfully as the lady of one's heart!"

"It is logical of women then to ask that eternal question?"

"Quite—I make a point of answering them always without irritation."

——I wonder—if Miss Sharp loved anyone would she?——but I am determined not to speculate further about her—.

When Colonel Harcourt had gone—I deliberately rang my bell—and when she came into the room I found I was not sure what I had rung for—It is the most exasperating fact that Miss Sharp keeps me in a continual state of nervous consciousness.

Her manner was indifferently expectant, if one can use such a paradoxical description—.

"I—I—wondered if you played the piano?—"I blurted out.

She looked surprised—if one can ever say she looks anything, with the expression of her eyes completely hidden. She answered as usual with one word—.

"Yes."

"I suppose you would not play to me?—er—it might give me an inspiration for the last chapter—"

She went and opened the lid of the instrument.

"What sort of music do you like?" she asked.

"Play whatever you think I would appreciate."

She began a Fox trot, she played it with unaccountable spirit and taste, so that the sound did not jar me—but the inference hurt a little. I said nothing, however. Then she played "Smiles," and the sweet commonplace air said all sorts of things to me—Desire to live again, and dance, and enjoy foolish pleasures—How could this little iceberg of a girl put so much devilment into the way she touched the keys? If it had not been for the interest this problem caused me, the longing the sounds aroused in me to be human again, would have driven me mad.

No one who can play dance music with that lilt can be as cold as a stone—.

From this she suddenly turned to Debussy—she played a most difficult thing of his—I can't remember its name—then she stopped.

"Do you like Debussy?" I asked.

"No, not always."

"Then why did you play it?"

"I supposed you would."

"If you had said in plain words, 'I think you are a rotter who wants first dance music, then an unrestful modern decadent, brilliantly clever set of disharmonies,' you could not have expressed your opinion of me more plainly."

She remained silent—I could have boxed her ears.

I leaned back in my chair, perhaps I gave a short harsh sigh—if a sigh can be harsh—I was conscious that I had made some explosive sound.

She turned back to the piano again and began "Waterlily" and then "1812"—and the same strange quivering came over me that I experienced when I heard the cooing of the child.—My nerves must be in an awful rotten state—Then a longing to start up and break something shook me, break the windows, smash the lamp—yell aloud—I started to my one leg—and the frightful pain of my sudden movement did me good and steadied me.

Miss Sharp had left the piano and came over to me—.

"I am afraid you did not like that," she said—"I am so sorry"—her voice was not so cold as usual.

"Yes I did—" I answered—"forgive me for being an awful ass—I—I—love music tremendously, you see—"

She stood still for a moment—I was balancing myself by the table, my crutch had fallen. Then she put out her hand.

"Can I help you to sit down again?"—she suggested.

And I let her—I wanted to feel her touch—I have never even shaken hands with her before. But when I felt her guiding me to the chair, the maddest desire to seize her came over me—to seize her in my arms to tear off those glasses, to kiss those beautiful blue eyes they hid—to hold her fragile scrap of a body tight against my breast, to tell her that I loved her—and wanted to hold her there, mine and no one else's in all the world——My God! what am I writing—I must crush this nonsense—I must be sane—. But—what an emotion! The strongest I have ever felt about a woman in my life—.

When I was settled in the chair again—things seemed to become blank for a minute and then I heard Miss Sharp's voice with a tone—could it be of anxiety? in it? saying "Drink this brandy, please." She must have gone to the dining-room and fetched the decanter and glass from the case, and poured it out while I was not noticing events.

I took it.

Again I said—"I am awfully sorry I am such an ass."

"If you are all right now—I ought to go back to my work," she remarked—.

I nodded—and she went softly from the room. When I was alone, I used every bit of my will to calm myself—I analysed the situation. Miss Sharp loathes me—I cannot hold her by any means if she decides to go—. The only way I can keep her near me is by continuing to be the cool employer—And to do this I must see her as little as possible—because the profound disturbance she is able to cause in me, reacts upon my raw nerves—and with all the desire in the world to behave like a decent, indifferent man, the physical weakness won't let me do so, and I am so bound to make a consummate fool of myself.

When I was in the trenches and the shells were coming, and it was beastly wet and verminy and uncomfortable, I never felt this feeble, horrible quivering—I know just what funk is—I felt it the day I did the thing they gave me the V.C. for. This is not exactly funk—I wish I knew what it was and could crush it out of myself—.

Oh! if I could only fight again!—that was the best sensation in life—the zest—the zest!—What is it which prompts us to do decent actions? I cannot remember that I felt any exaltation specially—it just seemed part of the day's work—but how one slept! How one enjoyed any old thing—!

Would it be better to end it all and go out quite? But where should I go?—the me would not be dead.—I am beginning to believe in reincarnation. Such queer things happened among the fellows—I suppose I'd be born again as ugly of soul as I am now—I must send for some books upon the subject and read it up—perhaps that might give me serenity.

The Duchesse returned yesterday. I shall go and see her this afternoon I think,—perhaps she could suggest some definite useful work I could do—It is so abominably difficult, not being able to get about. What did she say?—She said I could pray—I remember—she had not time, she said—but the Bon Dieu understood—I wonder if He understands me—? or am I too utterly rotten for Him to bother about?

The Duchesse was so pleased to see me—she kissed me on both cheeks—.

"Nicholas! thou art better!" she said—"As I told you—the war is going to end well—!"

"And how is the book?" she asked presently—"It should be finished—I am told that your work is intermittent—."

My mind jumped to Maurice as the connecting link—the Duchesse of course must have seen him—but I myself have seen very little of Maurice lately—how did he know my work was intermittent—?

"Maurice told you?" I said.

"Maurice?"—her once lovely eyes opened wide—she has a habit of screwing them up sometimes when she takes off her glasses.—"Do you suppose I have been on a partie de plaisir, my son—that I should have encountered Maurice—!"

I dared not ask who was her informant—.

"Yes, I work for several days in succession, and then I have no ideas. It is a pretty poor performance anyway—and is not likely to find a publisher."

"You are content with your Secretary?"

This was said with an air of complete indifference. There was no meaning in it of the kind Madame de Clerté would have instilled into the tone.

"Yes—she is wonderfully diligent—it is impossible to dislodge her for a moment from her work. She thinks me a poor creature I expect."

The Duchesse's eyes, half closed now, were watching me keenly—.

"Why should she think that, Nicholas—you can't after all fight."

"No——but—."

"Get well, my boy—and these silly introspective fancies will leave you—Self analysis all the time for those who sit still—they imagine that they matter to the Bon Dieu as much as a Corps d'Armée—!"

"You are right, Duchesse, that is why I said Miss Sharp—my typist—probably thinks me a poor creature—she gets at my thoughts when I dictate."

"You must master your thoughts——"

And then with a total change of subject she remarked.

"Thou art not in love, Nicholas?"

I felt a hot flush rise to my face—What an idiotic thing to do—more silly than a girl—Again how I resent physical weakness reacting on my nerves.

"In love!"—I laughed a little angrily—"With whom could I possibly be in love, chère amie?! You would not suggest that Odette or Coralie or Alice could cause such an emotion!"

"Oh! for them perhaps no—they are for the senses of men—they are the exotic flowers of this forcing time—they have their uses—although I myself abhor them as types—but—is there no one else?"

"Solonge de Clerté?—Daisy Ryven?—both with husbands—."

"Not as if that prevented things" the Duchesse announced reflectively—"Well, well—Some of my blessés show just your symptoms, Nicholas, and I discover almost immediately it is because they are in love—with the brain—with the imagination you must understand—that is the only dangerous kind—. When it is with a pretty face alone—a good dose and a new book helps greatly."

"There would be no use in my being in love, Duchesse—"

"It would depend upon the woman—you want sympathy and a guiding hand—Va!—"

Sympathy and a guiding hand!

"I liked ruling and leading when I was a man—"

"——We all have our ups and downs—I like my own bed—but last night an extra batch of blessés came in—and I had to give it up to one whose back was a mass of festers—he would have lain on the floor else—. What will you—hein?—We have to learn to accommodate ourselves to conditions, my son."

Suddenly the picture of this noble woman's courage came to me vividly, her unvarying resourcefulness—her common sense—her sympathy with humanity—her cheerfulness—I never heard her complain or repine, even when fate took her only son at Verdun—Such as these are the glory of France—and Coralie and Odette and Alice seemed to melt into nothingness—.

"The war will be finished this autumn—" she told me presently—"and then our difficult time will begin—. Quarrels for all the world—Not good fighting—But you will live to see a Renaissance, Nicholas—and so prepare for it."

"What can I do, dear friend—If you knew how much I want to do something!"

"Your first duty is to get well.—Have yourself patched together—finished so to speak, and then marry and found a family to take the place of all who have perished. It was good taste when I was young not to have too many—but now!—France wants children—and England too. There is a duty for you, Nicholas!"

I kissed her hand—.

"If I could find a woman like you!" I cried—"indeed then I would worship her—."

"So—so—! There are hundreds such as I—when I was young I lived as youth lives—You must not be too critical, Nicholas."

She was called away then, back to one of the wards, and I hobbled down the beautiful staircases by myself—the lift was not working. The descent was painful and I felt hot and tired when I reached the ground floor, it was quite dusk then, and the one light had not yet been lit. A slight wisp of a figure passed along the end of the corridor. I could not see plainly, but I could have sworn it was Miss Sharp—I called her name—but no one answered me so I went on out,—the servant, aged ninety, now joining me, he assisted me into my one horse Victoria beyond the concierge's lodge.

Miss Sharp and the Duchesse!—? Why if this is so have I never been told about it?—The very moment Maurice returns I must get him to investigate all about the girl—In the meantime I think I shall go to Versailles—. I cannot stand Paris any longer—and the masseur can come out there, it is not an impossible distance away.

VII

Reservoires, Versailles.
September 10th.

How I love Versailles—the jolliest old hole on earth—(I wonder why one uses slang like this, I had written those words as an exact reflection of my thoughts—and nothing could be more inexact as a description of Versailles! It is as far from being "jolly" as a place can be—nor is it a "hole!") It is the greatest monument which the vanity of one man ever erected, and like all other superlatives it holds and interests. If the Grand Monarque squandered millions to build it, France has reaped billions from the pockets of strangers who have come to look at it. And so everything that is well done brings its good. Each statue is a personal friend of mine—and since I was a boy I have been in love with the delicious nymph with the shell at the bottom of the horse-shoe descent before you come to the tapis vert on the right hand side. She has two dimples in her back—I like to touch them—.

Why did I not come here sooner? I am at peace with the world—Burton wheels me up onto the terrace every evening to watch the sunset from the top of the great steps. All the masterpieces are covered with pent houses of concrete faced with straw, but the lesser gods and goddesses must take their chance.

And sitting here with peaceful families near me—old gentlemen—soldiers on leave—a pretty war widow with a great white dog—children with spades—all watching the glorious sky, seated in groups on the little iron park chairs, a sense of stupefaction comes over me—for a hundred or two kilometres away men are killing one another—women are searching for some trace of their homes—the ground is teeming with corpses—the air is fœtid with the smell of death! And yet we enjoy the opal sunset at Versailles and smile at the quaint appearance of the camouflaged bronzes!

Thus custom deadens all painful recollections and so are we able to live.

I wonder what Louis XIV would say if he could return and be among us? He, with all his faults being a well bred person, would probably adapt himself to circumstances, as the Duchesse does.

Suzette suggested that she should come and stay the week end out here—She wants change of air she says. I have consented.—Miss Sharp does not bring her eternal block and pencil until Tuesday—when Suzette will have left.

Now that I am peaceful and have forgotten my perturbations, Suzette will jolly me up—I have used the right term there!—Suzette does jolly one—! I feel I could write out here, but not about William and Mary furniture—! I could write a cynical story of the Duc de Richelieu's loves.—Armande, the present duc, tells me that he has a dispatch box filled with the love letters his ancestor received—their preservation owed to a faithful valet who kept them all separated in bundles tied with different ribbons—and every lock of hair and souvenir attached to each.—There is an idea!—I wonder if Burton has ever thought of keeping mine? He would not have had a heavy job in these last years—!

I read all the mornings, seated in the sun—I read Plato—I want to furbish up my Greek—For no reason on earth except that it is difficult, and perhaps if I start doing difficult things I may get more will.

Suzette arrived in an entirely new set of garments—the "geste" had altered, she said, one had to have a different look, and she was sure the autumn fashions would be even more pronounced.

"As you can readily understand, my friend, one cannot be démodé, dans le metier,—especially in war time!—"

Naturally I agreed with her—.

"The only unfortunate part is that it obliged me to break into the sum for Georgine's education."

"That is at least reparable"—I answered, and reached for my cheque-book—Suzette is such a good little sort—and clothes give her pleasure—and fancy being able to give real pleasure for a few thousand francs—pleasure, not comfort, or charity, or any respectable thing, but just pleasure! The only worry about this cheque was that Suzette was a little too affectionate after it!—I would nearly always rather only talk to her—now.

She accompanied my bath chair on to the terrace. Her ridiculous little outline and high heels contradicting all ideas of balance, and yet presenting an indescribable elegance. She prattled gaily—then when no one was looking she slipped her hand into mine.

"Mon cher! Mon petit chou!" she said.

We had the gayest dinner in my sitting-room—.

"The war was certainly nearing its close—Toinette, the friend of one of the Generals, assured her—people were thoroughly bored, and it was an excellent thing to finish it—."

"But even when peace comes, never again the restaurants open all night to dance, Nicholas!—there is a sadness, my friend!"

That was one of the really bad aspects of wars—the way they upset people's habits—, she told me. Even "dans le metier" things became of an uncertainty! '—One was never sure if the amant would not be killed—and it might be difficult to replace him advantageously!'

"It is perhaps fortunate for you that I am wounded and an institution, Suzette!"

"Thou—Nicholas!—Just as if I did not understand—I represent nothing but an agreeable passing of some moments to thee—Thou art not an Amant!—Not even a little pretense of loving me thou showest!"—

"But you said you never allowed yourself to care—perhaps I have the same idea—"

She shook with laughter.

"An artist at love thou, Nicholas—but no lover!"

"It is a nice distinction—would you like me better if I were a lover?"

"We have before spoken of this, Mon ami—If you were a lover—that is, if you loved—you would be dangerous even with your one leg and your one eye—a woman could be foolish for you. There is that air of Grand seigneur—that air of—mocking—of—Mon Dieu! Something which I can't find my word for—Thou art rudement chic cheri!"

I wished then that I had made the cheque larger—because there was something in her merry black eyes which told me she meant what she said—at the moment. I must be grateful to my money though after all—I could not be "rudement chic" or a "Grand seigneur" without it—Thus we get back to material things again!

——I wonder if material things could affect Miss Sharp?—One side of her certainly—or she could not have played that dance music——What can she think about all day?—certainly not my affairs, attending to them must be purely mechanical—. I know she is not stupid. She plays beautifully—she thinks—she has an air, and knowledge of the world. If I were not so afraid of losing her I would act toward her quite differently—I would chance annoying her by making her talk—but that fear holds me back.

George Harcourt says that between men and women, no matter what the relation may be, one or the other holds the reins and is the real arbiter of things, and that if you find yourself not in the happy position of master, there are many occasions when a man must look ridiculous.—I feel ridiculous when I think about Miss Sharp. I am "demand" and she is "supply"—I am wanting every moment of her time, and to know all her thoughts—and she is entirely uninterested in me, and grants nothing.

Suzette left last evening in the best of moods—I made the cheque larger—and now I am awaiting Miss Sharp in my sitting-room—I love this hotel—it has an air of indifference about it which is soothing, and the food is excellent.

Miss Sharp arrived about eleven to-day. Her cheeks were quite pink when she came in, and I could see she was warm with walking.—I wish I had remembered to send to the station to meet her.

"Do you think we shall be able to work here?" I asked her—"we have only the résumé chapter to do, and then the book will be finished."

"Why not here as well as any other place?"

"Does not environment matter to you?"

"I suppose it would if I were creating it, it does not matter now."

"Do you ever write—I mean write on your own?"

"Sometimes."

"What sort of things?"

She hesitated for a moment and then said as though she regretted having to speak the truth.—

"I write a journal."

I could not prevent myself from replying too eagerly—.

"Oh! I should like to see it!—er—I write one too!"—

She was silent. I felt nervous again—.

"Do you put down your impressions of people—and things?"

"I suppose so—."

"Why does one write a journal?—" I wanted to hear what she would answer.

"One writes journals if one is lonely."

"Yes, that is true. Then you are lonely?"

Again she conveyed to me the impression that I had shown bad taste in asking a personal question—and I felt this to be unjust, because in justice, she would have been forced to admit that her words were a challenge.

"You explain to me why one writes journals, and then when I presume upon the inference you snub me—You are not fair, Miss Sharp—"

"It would be better to stick to business," was all she answered—"will you dictate, please?"

I was utterly exasperated—.

"No, I won't!—If you only admit by inference that you are lonely, I say it right out—I am abominably lonely this morning and I want to talk to you.—Did I see you at the Duchesse de Courville-Hautevine's on Wednesday last?"

"Possibly."

I literally had not the pluck to ask her what she was doing there. However, she went on—.

"There are still many wounded who require bandages—."

That was it! of course—she was bringing bandages!

"She is a splendid woman, the Duchesse, she was a friend of my mother's—" I said.

Miss Sharp looked down suddenly—she had her head turned towards the window.

"There are many splendid women in France—but you don't see them—the poor are too wonderful, they lose their nearest and dearest and never complain, they only say it is 'la Guerre!'."

"Have you any near relations fighting?"—

"Yes"—

It was too stupid having to drag information out of her like this—I gave it up—and then I was haunted by the desire to know what relations they were?—If she has a father he must be at least fifty—and he must be in the English Army—why then does she seem so poor?—It can't be a brother—her's is only thirteen—would a cousin count as a near relation?—or—can she have a fiancé—?!

The sudden idea of this caused me a nasty twinge—But no, her third finger has no ring on it.—I grew calmer again—.

"I feel you have a hundred thousand interesting things to say if you would only talk!" I blurted out at last.

"I am not here to talk, Sir Nicholas—I am here to do your typing."

"Does that make a complete barrier?—Won't you be friends with me?"

Burton came into the room at that moment—and while he was there she slipped off to her typing without answering me. Burton has arranged a place for her in his room, which is next to mine, so that I shall not be disturbed by the noise of her machine clicking.

"Miss Sharp must lunch with me"—I said.

Burton coughed as he answered.

"Very good, Sir Nicholas."

That meant that he did not approve of this arrangement—why?—Really these old servants are unsupportable.

The antediluvian waiters come in to lay the table presently, and I ordered peaches and grapes and some very special chablis—I felt exultant at my having manoeuvred that Miss Sharp should eat with me!

She came in when all was ready with her usual serene calm—and took her place at right angles to me.

Her hands are not nearly so red to-day, and their movements when she began to eat pleased me—her wrists are tiny, and everything she does is dainty.

She did not peck her food like a bird, as very slight people sometimes do—and she was entirely at ease—it was I who was nervous—.

"Won't you take off your glasses," I suggested—but she declined—.

"Of what use—I can see with them on."

This disconcerted me.

The waiter poured out the chablis carefully. She took it casually without a remark, but for an instant a cynical expression grew round her mouth—What was she thinking of?—it is impossible to tell, not seeing her eyes—but some cynical thought was certainly connected with the wine—By the direction of her head she may have been reading the label on the bottle—Does she know how much it cost and disapprove of that in war time—or what?

We talked of French politics next,—that is, she answered everything I said with intelligence, and then let the subject drop immediately—Nothing could be more exasperating because I knew it was deliberate and not that she is stupid, or could not keep up the most profound conversation. She seemed to know the war situation very well—Then I began about French literature—and at the end of the meal had dragged out enough replies to my questions to know that she is an exquisitely cultivated person—Oh! what a companion she would make if only I could break down this wretched barrier of her reserve!

She ate a peach—and I do hope she liked it—but she refused a cigarette when I offered her one—.

"I don't smoke."

"Oh, I am so sorry I did not know—" and I put out mine.

"You need not do that—I don't mind other people smoking, so long as I need not do it myself."

I re-lit another one—.

"Do you know—I believe I shall have my new eye put in before Christmas!" I told her just before she rose from the table—and for the first time I have known her, the faintest smile came round her mouth—a kindly smile—.

—"I am so very glad," she said.

And all over me there crept a thrill of pleasure.

After lunch I suggested the parc, and that I should dictate in some lovely cool spot. She made no objection, and immediately put on her hat—a plain dark blue straw. She walked a little behind my bath chair as we turned out of the Reservoires courtyard and began ascending the avenue in the parc, so that I could not converse with her. By the time we had reached the parterre I called to her—

"Miss Sharp"—

She advanced and kept beside me—.

"Does not this place interest you awfully?" I hazarded.

"Yes."

"Do you know it well?"

"Yes."

"What does it say to you?"

"It is ever a reminder of what to avoid."

"What to avoid! but it is perfectly beautiful. Why should you want to avoid beauty?!"

"I do not—it is what this was meant to stand for and what human beings failed in allowing it to do—that is the lesson."

I was frightfully interested.

"Tell me what you mean?"

"The architects were great, the king's thought was great—but only in one way—and everyone—the whole class—forgot the real meaning of noblesse oblige, and abused their power—and so the revolution swept them away—They put false value upon everything—false values upon birth and breeding—and no value upon their consequent obligations, or upon character—."

"You believe in acknowledging your obligations I know"—

"Yes—I hope so—Think in that palace the immense importance which was given to etiquette and forms and ceremonies—and to a quite ridiculous false sense of honour—they could ruin their poor tradesmen and—yet—."

"Yes"—I interrupted—"it was odd, wasn't it?—a gentleman was still a gentleman, never paying his tailor's bills—but ceased to be one if he cheated at cards—."

Miss Sharp suddenly dropped her dark blue parasol and bent to pick it up again—and as she did she changed the conversation by remarking that there were an unusual quantity of aeroplanes buzzing from Buc.

This was unlike her—I cannot think why she did so. I wanted to steer her back to the subject of Versailles and its meaning—.

Burton puffed a little as we went up the rather steep slope by the Aile du Nord, and Miss Sharp put her hand on the bar and helped him to push the chair.

"Is it not hateful for me being such a burden"—I could not help saying—.

"It leaves you more time to think—."

"Well! that is no blessing—that is the agony—thinking."

"It should not be—to have time to think must be wonderful"—and she sighed unconsciously.

Over me came a kind of rush of tenderness—I wanted to be strong again, and protect her and make her life easy, and give her time and love and everything in the world she could wish for—But I dared not say anything, and she hung back again a little, and once more it made the conversation difficult—and when we reached a sheltered spot by the "point du jour" I felt there was a sort of armour around her, and that it would be wiser to go straight to work and not talk further to-day.

She went directly from the parc to catch her train at five o'clock—and I was wheeled back to the hotel.

And now I have the evening alone before me—but the day is distinctly a step onward in the friendship line.

VIII

I spent a memorable day with Miss Sharp in the parc yesterday. I do not even remember what I did in the intermediate time—it seems of so little importance—but this Thursday will always stand out as a landmark of our acquaintance.

We drove in a fiacre to the Little Trianon after she arrived, with Burton on the box to help me out, and then I walked with my crutch to a delicious spot I know, rather near the grotto, and yet with a view of the house—I was determined I would entice her to talk as much as I could, and began very cautiously so as not to provoke her to suggest work.

"Have you ever read that wonderful story called 'An Adventure'—The two old ladies seeing Marie Antoinette and some other ghosts here?"

"No."

So I told her about it, and how they had accounted for it.

"I expect it was true," she said.

"You believe in ghosts then?"

"Some ghosts."

"I wish I did—then I should know that there is a beyond—."

I felt she was looking surprised.

"But of course there is a beyond—we have all been there many times during our evolution, after each life."

"That is what I want to know about—that theory of reincarnation," I responded eagerly—"can you tell me?"

"I could get you a book about it—."

"I would much rather hear it personally explained—the merest outline,—please tell me, it might help me not to be such a rotter—."

She looked away toward the giant trees, her mouth had a slightly sad expression, I could have torn those glasses off her blue eyes!

"We came up through the animal group soul—and finally were re-born individualized, into man—and from then onward the life on this earth is but a school for us to learn experience in, to prepare us eventually for higher spheres. When we advance far enough we need not be re-born again—."

"Yes—as a theory—I follow that—."

She went on—

"Everything is cause and effect—We draw the result of every action we commit, good or bad—and sometimes it is not until the next re-birth we pay for the bad ones, or receive the result of the good ones—."

"Is that why then that I am a cripple and life seems a beastly affair—?"

"Of course—You drew that upon yourself by some actions in your last life—. Also it may be to teach you some lesson in the improvement of the soul—."

"I don't seem to have learned anything—I believe I am rebellious all the time—."

"Probably."

"Miss Sharp—you could really help me if you would. Please explain to me—I will be a diligent pupil."

"Perhaps you were in a position of great power the last time, and were lavish and kind to people in a way—or you would not be so rich now—but you caused suffering and relied upon yourself, not on anything divine—you must have caused much suffering, perhaps mentally even, and so you had to be re-born and be wounded—to teach you the lesson of it all;—that is called your Karma. Our Karma is what we bring on with us from life to life in the way of obligations which we must discharge—so you see it rests with each one of us not to lay up more debts to pay in the future."

Her refined voice was level, as though she were controlling herself, not to allow any personal feeling to enter her discourse—her gloved hands were perfectly still in her lap—She was in profile to me so that I could see that her very long eyelashes seemed to be rather pressed against the glasses—I have not before been so close to her in a bright light.—Why does she wear those damned spectacles? I was thinking, when she said—

"You find it hard to be confined to your chair and not to be able to fight, don't you?—Well when you could fight it was not always the pleasure of going over the top? You had to have times in the trenches too, hadn't you—when you just had to bear it?"

"Of course—?"

"Well—you are in the trenches now, don't you see—and it is according to how your soul learns the lesson of them, as to whether in this life you will ever be allowed to go over the top again—or even to have peace."

"What is the lesson?"

"I am not God—I cannot tell you—but we would all know what our lesson to learn is, if we were not too vain to face the truth into ourselves."

"The aim being?"—

"Why of course to improve character and learn strength."

"What qualities do you most admire in a person, Miss Sharp?"

"Self control and strength."

"You have no sympathy with weaklings?"

"None whatever—bad strong people are better than weak good ones."

I knew this was true. This fragile creature suggests infinite repose and strength—what could she have done in a former life to bring her back in such unkind surroundings, that she must spend her days in drudgery, so that she has never even leisure to think?—I longed to ask her, but did not dare.

"Shall we not begin work now," she suggested—and I demonstrated my first lesson in self control by agreeing, and we did not talk again until luncheon time.

"If you don't mind we shall go to the little café by the lac," I said—"and then afterwards we can find another place and work again—Burton will have had my wheeled chair brought down there, so we can choose a decent spot in one of the bosquets."

She nodded slightly—Now that it was not to help my moral regeneration she did not intend to talk any more, it seemed!

As we got into the fiacre I slipped in the slightest degree, and caught on to her arm—It was bare to the elbow in the little cheap cotton frock, and as I touched the fine, fine skin, that maddening feeling came over me again to clasp her in my arms.—I pulled myself together, and she got in beside me. She has a darling tiny curl which comes behind her ear, slipped down probably because her hair is so unfashionably dressed—None of Suzette's "geste," nor even the subtle perfect taste of the fluffies.—It is just torn back and rolled into a tight twist. But now that I see her out of doors and in perspective I realize that she has a lovely small figure, and that everything is in the right place. I had told Burton to order the nicest lunch he could think of in that simple place, and our table under one of the umbrellas was waiting for us when we arrived.

There were only four other people there besides ourselves, and a few came in afterwards.

I had forgotten my bread tickets, so Miss Sharp gave me one of hers. She had relapsed into absolute silence. The only words she had uttered as we came down that avenue from The Trianon to the lac were when I exclaimed at the beauty of it—I judged by her mouth that she was admiring it too—and she said softly—

"For me, Versailles is the loveliest spot on earth!"

My mind flew then to the thought of what it would be to buy a really nice house here and spend the summers—with her—for my own—. I found myself clutching at my crutch—.

I tried to make conversation at lunch. There is nothing in the world so difficult as to keep this up when you are nervous with interest, and the other person is determined not to say a sentence which is unnecessary. A chill crept over me.

Burton turned up in time to pay the bill and put me into my chair.

"I don't think you look well enough to stay out the afternoon, Sir Nicholas"—he said—"Better go straight back to the hotel and rest—."

Miss Sharp joined in.

"I was going to say that"—she said.

I felt like a cross, disappointed child—I knew they were both right though; I was feeling pretty tired and had not an idea in my head. But if I did that, there would be a chance to see her lost—and all the long hours to face alone—.

"I am quite all right and I want to work," I said fretfully—and we started off.

We went up through the lovely allées past Enceledus—and on to the Quinconce du Nord, Miss Sharp walking a little behind my chair.

Here Burton bent over me—.

"It would be good for you to be taking a nap, Sir Nicholas—Indeed it would."

It seemed as if Miss Sharp was abetting him, for she came to my side—.

"If you can get quite comfortable—I would read to you, and you might sleep," she said—.

"We've no book"—I retorted—peeved, and yet pleased at the idea.

"I have one here which, will do"—and she took a little volume from her bag.—"I have wanted it for a long time, and I bought it at the Foire as I came from the station to-day—it cost a franc!"

It was a worn eighteenth century copy of François Villon—.

"Yes, that will be nice," I agreed—and leaned back while Burton settled my cushion, and then retired to a distance. Twelve years on and off of Paris has not taught him French—at least not the French of François Villon!

Miss Sharp took a little parc chair and I was able to watch her as she read—I did not even hear the words—because, as she was looking down I had not to guard myself, but could let my eye devour her small oval face. All my nerves were thrilling again and there was no peace—how I longed—ached—to take her into my arms!

She looked up once after an hour, to see if I were asleep, I suppose.—She must have observed passionate emotion in my eye—she looked down at the book instantly, but a soft pink flush came into her cheeks—which have a mother of pearl transparency usually. This caused me deep pleasure—I had been able to make her feel something at any rate! but then I was frightened—perhaps she would suggest going if she found the situation uncomfortable. Her voice had a fresh tone in it as she went on, and finally it faltered, and she stopped.

"If it is not putting you to sleep" she remarked—"perhaps you would not object if I walked on and typed what I took down this morning—It seems a pity to waste this time."

I knew that if I did not let her have her way there might be difficulties, so I agreed—and said that I would go back to the hotel and rest upon the sofa in the salon—So the procession started, and as we took the allée, to bring us to the Reservoirs on the level—I suddenly caught sight of Coralie and her last favoured one!—both of whom are supposed to be at Deauville with the rest!

Coralie was exquisitely dressed, Duquesnois in uniform.

I realized that she had seen us, and that she could not avoid coming up to talk, although that had not been her intention—When one is supposed to be at Deauville with one's family, and is in reality at Versailles with one's lover—one does not seek to recognize one's friends!

She came forward with empressement when she found the meeting was inevitable—.

"Nicholas!" she cooed "—what happiness!"—

Then she eyed Miss Sharp mischievously, making a movement as though she expected me to introduce them—.

But Miss Sharp defeated this by immediately walking on—.

"Tiens!" said Coralie—.

"That is Miss Sharp—my secretary—What are you doing—here Coralie?"

"Perhaps the same as you, cher ami—" and she rippled with laughter—"Versailles is so tranquil a place!"

I could have slapped her—fortunately Miss Sharp was out of earshot—.

Jean Duquesnois now joined in—he was back from the front for two days—things were going better—peace would certainly be declared before Christmas—.

Coralie meanwhile was looking after Miss Sharp with an expression upon her clever face which only a Frenchwoman is able to put there—It said as plainly as words, "So this is the reason Nicholas!—Well you have chosen something very every-day and inexpensive this time!—Men are certainly crazy in their tastes!"

I pretended not to notice, and so she spoke.

"Why if you can come here cannot you come to Deauville, Nicholas?—there must be some irresistible attraction stronger than to be with your friends!"

"Yes—he is an excellent Swedish masseur who is glued to Paris.—Also I like solitude sometimes—."

"Solitude!" and Coralie glanced at Miss Sharp's rapidly disappearing figure—. "Hein?"

I would not permit myself to grow angry.

"The book is nearly finished—you can tell the rest—."

"That old book! You were much more entertaining before you commenced it, Nicholas! Perhaps the idea has come to me why!"

I would not be drawn—I threw the war into the enemy's country.

"You are staying at the Reservoirs?"

I saw that she was—and that now the thought of my being there disconcerted her—.

"But no!" she lied sweetly—"I am merely out here for the day to see Louise, who has a son in the hospital—."

It was my turn to say—

"Tiens?"

And then we both laughed—and I let them go on—.

But when I got into my salon—I heard no typing—only there was a note from Miss Sharp to say that some slight thing had gone wrong with the machine, so she had taken the work to finish it at home—.

I cursed Coralie and all the fluffies in the world, and then in pain laid down upon my bed.

IX

Saturday Morning:

Yesterday I was so restless I could not settle to anything. I read pages and pages of Plato and was conscious that the words were going over in my head without conveying the slightest meaning, and that the other part of my mind was absorbed with thoughts of Miss Sharp—. If I only dared to be natural with her we surely could be friends, but I am always obsessed with the fear that she will leave me if I transgress in the slightest beyond the line she has marked between us—. I see that she is determined to remain only the secretary, and I realize that it is her breeding which makes her act as she does—. If she were familiar or friendly with me, she would feel it was not correct to come to my flat alone—She only comes at all because the money is so necessary to her—and having to come, she protects her dignity by wearing this ice mask.—I know that she was affronted by Coralie's look on Thursday, and that is why she went home pretending the typing machine was out of order—Now if any more of these contretemps happen she will probably give me warning. Burton instinctively sensed this, and that is why he disapproved of my asking her to lunch—If she had been an ordinary typist Burton would not have objected in the least,—as I said before, Burton knows the world!

Now what is to be done next?—I would like to go and confide in the Duchesse, and tell her that I believe I have fallen in love with my secretary, who won't look at me, and ask her advice—but that I fear with all her broad-minded charity, her class prejudice is too strong to make her really sympathetic. Her French mind of the Ancien Régime could not contemplate a Thormonde—son of Anne de Mont-Anbin—falling in love with an insignificant Miss Sharp who brings bandages to the Courville hospital!

These thoughts tormented me so all yesterday that I was quite feverish by the evening—and Burton wore an air of thorough disapproval. A rain shower came on too, and I could not go up on the terrace for the sunset.

I would like to have taken asperines and gone to sleep, when night came—but I resisted the temptation, telling myself that to-morrow she would come again.

I am dawdling over this last chapter on purpose—and I have re-read the former ones and decided to rewrite one or two, but at best I cannot spread this out over more than six weeks, I fear, and then what excuse can I have for keeping her? I feel that she would not stay just to answer a few letters a day, and do the accounts and pay the bills with Burton. I feel more desperately miserable than I have felt since last year—And I suppose that according to her theory, I have to learn a lesson. It seems if I search, as she said one must do without vanity, that the lesson is to conquer emotion, and be serene when everything which I desire is out of reach.

Saturday Night:

To-day has been one of utter disaster and it began fairly well. Miss Sharp turned up at eleven as I shut my journal. I had sent to the station to meet her this time—She brought all the work she had taken away with her on Thursday, quite in order—and her face wore the usual mask. I wonder if I had not ever seen her without her glasses if I should have realized now that she is very pretty—I can see her prettiness even with them on—her nose is so exquisitely fine, and the mouth a Cupid's bow really—if one can imagine a Cupid's bow very firm. I am sure if she were dressed as Odette, or Alice, or Coralie, she would be lovely. This morning when she first came I began thinking of this and of how I should like to give her better things than any of the fluffies have ever had—how I would like her to have some sapphire bangles for those little wrists and a great string of pearls round that little throat—my mother's pearls—and perhaps big pearls in those shell ears—And how I would like to take her hair down and brush it out, and let it curl as it wanted to—and then bury my face in it—those stiff twists must take heaps of hair to make.—But why am I writing all this when the reality is further off than ever, and indeed has become an impossibility I fear.

We worked in the sitting-room—it was a cloudy day—and presently, after I had been dreaming on in this way, I asked her to read over the earlier chapters of the book.—She did—.

"Now what do you think of the thing as a whole?" I asked her.

She was silent for a moment as though trying not to have to answer directly, then that weird constitutional honesty seemed to force out the words.

"It perhaps tells what that furniture is."

"You feel it is awful rot?"

"No—."

"What then?"

"It depends if you mean to publish it?"

I leaned back and laughed—bitterly! the realization that she understood so completely that it was only a "soulagement"—an "asperine" for me, so to speak as the Duchesse said—cut in like a knife. I had the exasperated feeling that I was just being pandered to, humored by everyone, because I was wounded. I was an object of pity, and even my paid typist—but I can't write about it.

Miss Sharp started from her chair, her fine nostrils were quivering, and her mouth had an expression I could not place.

"Indeed, it is not bad," she said—"You misunderstand me—."

I knew now that she was angry with herself for having hurt me—and that I could have made capital out of this, but something in me would not let me do that.

"Oh—it is all right—" I replied, but perhaps my voice may have been flat and discouraged—for she went on so kindly.

"You know a great deal about the subject of course—but I feel the chapters want condensing—May I tell you just where?"

I felt that the thing did not interest me any more, one way or another, it was just a ridiculous non-essential—. I saw it all in a new perspective—but I was glad she seemed kindly—though for a moment even that appeared of less importance. Something seemed to have numbed me. What, what could be the good of anything?—the meaning of anything?—I unconsciously put my head back against the cushion of my chair in weariness—I felt the soft silk and shut my eye for a moment.

When Miss Sharp spoke again, her voice was full of sympathy—and was it remorse—?

"I would like to help you to take interest in it—again—won't you let me?" she pleaded.

I was grateful that she did not say she was sorry she had hurt me—that I could not have stood—.

I opened my eye now and looked at her, she was bending nearer to me, but I felt nothing particular, only a desire to go to sleep and have done with it all. It was as if the fabric of my make-believe had been rent asunder.

"It is very good of you," I answered politely—"Yes—say what you think."

Her tact is immense—she plunged straight into the subject without further imputation of sympathy,—her voice, full of inflections of interest and friendliness, her constrained self-control laid aside for the time. She spoke so intelligently, showing trained critical faculties—and at last my numbness began gradually to melt, and I could not help some return of sensation. There may have been soothing syrup in the fact that she must have been interested in the work, or she could not have dissected it chapter by chapter, point by point, as she was doing.

She grew animated as we discussed things, and once unconsciously took off her glasses—It was like the sun coming out after days of storm clouds—her beautiful, beautiful blue eyes!—My "heart gave a bound"—(I believe that is the way to express what I mean!)—I felt a strange emotion of excitement and pleasure—I had not time to control my admiration, I expect,—for she took fright and instantly replaced them, a bright flush in her cheeks—and went on talking in a more reserved way—Alas!—

Of course then I realized that she does not wear the glasses for any reason of softening light or of defective sight, but simply to hide those blue stars and make herself unattractive—.

How mysterious it all is!—

I wish I had been able to conceal the fact that I had noticed that the glasses were off—Another day I would certainly have taken advantage of this moment and would have tried to make her confess the reason of her wearing them; but some odd quality in me prevented me from reaping any advantage from this situation, so I let the chance pass.—Perhaps she was grateful to me, for she warmed up a little again.

I began to feel that I might write the fool of a book right over from the beginning—and suggested to her that we should take it in detail.

She acquiesced—.

Then it suddenly struck me that she had not only spoken of style in writing, of method in book making—but had shown an actual knowledge of the subject of the furniture itself.—How could little Miss Sharp, a poverty stricken typist, be familiar with William and Mary furniture? She has obviously not "seen better days," and only taken up a stenographic business lately, because such proficiency as she shows, not only in this work but in account keeping and all the duties of a secretary, must have required a steady professional training.

Could she have studied in Museums?

But the war has been on for four years and I had gathered that she has been in Paris all that time—Even if she had left England in 1914, she could only have been eighteen or nineteen then, and girls of that age do not generally take an interest in furniture. This thought kept bothering me—and I was silent for some moments. I was weighing things up.

Her voice interrupted my thoughts.

"The Braxted chair has the first of the knotted fringes known"—it was saying.

I had spoken of the Braxted chair—but had not recorded this fact—.

How the devil could she have known about it?

"Where did you find that?"

"I knew someone who had seen it—" she answered in the same voice, but her cheeks grew pinker—.

"You have never seen it yourself?"

"No—I have never been in England—."

"——Never been in England?"

I was stupefied.

She went on hurriedly—I was going to write feverishly,—so quickly did she rush into questions of method in arranging the chapters, her armour was on again—she had become cautious, and was probably annoyed with herself for ever having allowed herself to slip off her guard.

I knew that I could disconcert her, and probably obtain some interesting admissions from her—and have a thrilling fencing match, but some instinct warned me not to do so—I might win out for the time being, but if she has a secret which she does not wish me to discover, she will take care not again to put herself in a situation where this can happen. I have the apprehension always hanging, like Damocles' sword, over my head, of her relinquishing her post. Besides, why should I trouble her for my own satisfaction?—However, I registered a vow then that I would find out all I could from Maurice.

The inference of everything she says, does and unconsciously infers, is that she is a cultivated lady, accustomed to talking with people of our world—people who know England and its great houses well enough to have made her familiar with the knowledge of where certain pieces of famous furniture are.—The very phrasing of her sentences is the phrasing of our Shibboleth, and not the phrasing of the professional classes.

And yet—she is meanly dressed—does housework—and for years must have been trained in professional business methods. It is profoundly interesting.

I have never even questioned Maurice as to how he heard of her.

Well, I write all this down calmly, the record of the morning, to let myself look back on it, and to where the new intimacy might have led us, but for the sickening end to the day.

Burton did not question her lunching with me this time—he had given the order as a matter of course—He is very fine in his distinctions, and understood that to make any change after she once had eaten with me would be invidious.

By the time the waiters came in to lay the table, that sense of hurt, and then of numbness, had worn off—I was quite interested again in the work, and intensely intrigued about the possible history of the Sharp family!

I was using cunning, too, and displaying casual indifference, so watchfulness was allowed to rest a little with the strange girl.

"I believe if you will give me your help I shall be able to make quite a decent book of it after all,—but does it not seem absurd to trouble about such thing's as furniture with the world in ruins and Empires tottering!"—I remarked while the ark-relic handed the omelette—.

"All that is only temporary—presently people will be glad to take up civilized interests again."

"You never had any doubt as to how the war would end?"

"Never."

"Why?"

"Because I believe in the gallantry of France, and the tenacity of England, and the—youth of America."

"And what of Germany?"

"The vulgarity."

This was quite a new reason for Germany's certain downfall—! It delighted me—.

"But vulgarity does not mean weakness!"

"Yes it does—Vulgar people have imperfect sensibilities, and cannot judge of the psychology of others, they appraise everything by their own standard—and so cannot calculate correctly possible contingencies—that shows weakness."

"How wise you are—and how you think!"

She was silent.

"All the fighting nations will be filled with vulgarians even when we do win, though with most of the decent people killed—" I ventured to say—.

"Oh! no—Lots of their souls are not vulgar, only their environment has caused their outward self-expression to seem so. Once you get below the pompous bourgeoisie in France, for instance, the more delightful you find the spirit, and I expect it is the same in England. It is the pretentious aspiring would-bes who are vulgar—and Germany seems filled with them,"

"You know it well?"

"Yes, pretty well."

"If it is not a frightfully impertinent question—how old are you really, Miss Sharp—?" I felt that she could not be only twenty-three after this conversation.

She smiled—the second smile I have seen—.

"On the twentieth of October I shall be twenty-four."

"Where on earth did you learn all your philosophy of life in the time!"

"It is life which teaches us everything—if we are not half asleep—especially if it is difficult—."

"And the stupid people are like me—not liking to learn any lessons and kicking against the pricks—.",

"Yes—."

"I would try to learn anything you would teach me though, Miss Sharp."

"Why?"

"Because I have confidence in you"—I did not add—because I loved her voice and respected her character and——.

"Thank you"—she said.

"Will you teach me?"

"What?"

"How not to be a rotter—."

"A man knows that himself—."

"How to learn serenity then?"

"That would be difficult."

"Am I so impossible?"

"I cannot say—but."

"But—what?"

"One would have to begin from the beginning—."

"Well?"

"And I have not time—."

I looked at her as she said this—there was in the tone a faint echo of regret, so I wanted to see the expression of her mouth—It told me nothing.

I could not get anything further out of her, because the waiters came in and out after this rather frequently, changing the courses—and so I did not have any success.

After lunch I suggested as it had cleared up that we should go at least as far as the parterre, and sit under the shadow of the terrace—the flower beds are full of beans now—their ancient glories departed. Miss Sharp followed my bath chair,—and with extreme diligence kept me to the re-arranging of the first chapter. For an hour I watched her darling small face whenever I could. A sense of peace was upon me. We were certainly on the first rung of the ladder of friendship—and presently—presently—If only I could keep from annoying her in any way!

When we had finished our task she rose—.

"If you don't mind, as it is Saturday I have promised Burton"—and she looked at him, seated on a chair beyond earshot enjoying the sun—"to do up the accounts and prepare the cheques for you to sign—. So I will go in now and begin."

I wanted to say "Damn the accounts"—but I let her go—I must play the tortoise in this game, not the hare. She smiled faintly—the third smile—as she made me a little bow, and walked off.

After a few paces she came back again.

"May I ask Burton for the bread ticket I lent you on Thursday," she said—"No one can afford to be generous with them now, can they!"

I was delighted at this. I would have been delighted at anything which kept her with me an extra minute.

I watched her as she disappeared down towards the Reservoirs with longing eyes, then I must have dozed for a while, because it was a quarter to five when I got back to my sitting-room.

And when I was safely in my chair there was a knock on the door, and in she came—with a cheque-book in her hand. Before I opened it or even took it up I knew something had happened which had changed her again.

Her manner had its old icy respect as of a person employed, all the friendliness which had been growing in the last two or three days had completely departed. I could not imagine why—.

She put the cheque-book open, and handed me a pen to sign with, and then I signed the dozen that she had filled in, and tore them off as I did so. She was silent, and when I had finished she took them, saying casually that she would bring the corrected chapter typed again on Tuesday, and was now going to catch her train—and before I could reply, she had gone into the other room—.

A frightful sense of depression fell upon me—What could it possibly be—?

Idly I picked up the cheque-book—and absently fingered the leaves—then my eye caught a counterfoil where I had chanced to open it. It was not in Miss Sharp's handwriting, although this was the house cheque-book which Burton usually keeps, but in my own and there was written, just casually as I scribble in my private account.—"For Suzette 5000 francs" and the date of last Saturday—and on turning the page there was the further one of "For Suzette 3000 francs" and the date of Monday!!

The irony of fate!—I had picked this cheque-book up inadvertently I suppose on these two days instead of my own.

X

It is quite useless for me to comment upon the utterly annoying circumstance of that mixup of cheque-books—Such things are fate—and fate I am beginning to believe is nothing but a reflex of our own actions. If Suzette had not been my little friend, I should not have given her eight thousand francs—but as she has been—and I did—I must stand by the consequences.

After all—a man?—Well—what is the use of writing about it. I am so utterly mad and resentful that I have no words.

It is Sunday morning, and this afternoon I shall hire the one motor which can be obtained here, at a fabulous price, and go into Paris. There are some books I want to get out of my bookcase—and somehow I have lost interest here. But this morning I shall go and sit in the parish church and hear Mass.—I feel so completely wretched, the music may comfort me and give me courage to forget all about Miss Sharp. And in any case there is a soothing atmosphere in a Roman Catholic church, which is agreeable. I love the French people! They are a continual tonic, if one takes them rightly. So filled with common sense, simply using sentiment as an ornament, and a relaxation; and never allowing it to interfere with the practical necessities of life. Ignorant people say they are hysterical, and over passionate—They are nothing of the kind—They believe in material things, and in the "beau geste." Where they require a religion, they accept a comforting one; and meanwhile they enjoy whatever comes in their way and get through disagreeables philosophically. Vive la France!

I am waiting for the motor now—and trying to be resigned.—Mass did me good—I sat in a corner and kept my crutch by me. The Church itself told me stories, I tried to see it in Louis XV's time—I dare say it looked much the same, only dirtier—And life was made up with etiquette and forms and ceremonies, more exasperating than anything now. But they were ahead of us in manners, and a sense of beauty.

A little child came and sat beside me for about ten minutes, and looked at me and my crutch sympathetically.

"Blessé de la guerre," I heard her whisper to her mother—"Comme Jean."

The organ was not bad—and before I came out I felt calmer.

After all it is absurd of Miss Sharp to be disgusted about Suzette—She must know, at nearly twenty-four, and living in France, that there are Suzettes—and I am sure she is not narrow-minded in any way—What can have made her so censorious? If she took a personal interest in me it would be different, but entirely indifferent as she is, how can it matter to her?—As I write this, that hot sense of anger and rebellion arises in me—I'll have to keep saying to myself that I am in the trenches again and must not complain.

I'll make Burton find out if Coralie is really staying here, and get her to dine with me to-night—Coralie always pretended to have a béguin for me—even when most engaged elsewhere.

Monday:

Sunday was a memorable day—.

I went through the Bois de Marne on that bad road because the trees were so lovely—and then through the parc de St. Cloud. Even in war time this wonderful people can enjoy the open air life!—

I think of Henriette d' Angleterre looking from the terrace of her Château over the tree tops—The poor Château! not a stone of which is standing to-day—Did she feel sentimental with her friend the Comte de Guiche—as I would like to feel now?—If I had someone to be sentimental with. Alas! There was an ominous hot stillness in the air, and the sky beyond the Eiffel tower had a heavy, lurid tone in it.

When we got across the river into the Bois de Boulogne it seemed as if all Paris was enjoying a holiday. I told the chauffeur to go down a side allée and to go slowly, and presently I made him draw up at the side of the road. It was so hot, and I wanted to rest for a little, the motion was jarring my leg.

I think I must have been half asleep, when my attention was caught by three figures coming up another by-path obliquely—the tallest of them was undoubtedly Miss Sharp—but Miss Sharp as I had never seen her before!—

And a boy of thirteen, and a girl of eleven were at either side of her, the boy clinging on to her arm, he was lame and seemed to be a dreadfully delicate, rickety person. The little girl was very small and sickly looking too—but Miss Sharp—my secretary!—appeared blooming and young and lovely in her inexpensive foulard frock—No glasses hid her blue eyes. Her hair was not torn back and screwed into a knot, but might have been dressed by Alice's maid—and her hat, the simplest thing possible, was most becoming, with the proper modish "look."—

Refinement and perfect taste proclaimed themselves from every inch of her, even if everything had only cost a small sum.

So that dowdy get-up is for my benefit, and is not habitual to her!—Or is it, that she has only one costume and keeps it for Sundays and days of fête?—

In spite of my determination to put all thought of her from me—a wild emotion arose—a passionate longing to spring from the car and join her—to talk to her, and tell her how lovely I thought she was looking.

They came nearer and nearer—I could see that her face was rippling with smiles at something the little brother had said—Its expression was gentle and sympathetic and it was obvious that fond affection held all three.

The children might have been drawn by Du Maurier in Punch long ago, to express a family who were overbred. Race run to seed expressed itself in every line of them. The boy wore an Eton jacket and collar and a tall hat—and it looked quite strange in this place.

As they got close to me I could hear him cough in the hollow way which tells its own story—.

I cowered down behind the hood of the motor, and they passed without seeing me—or perhaps Miss Sharp did see me but was determined not to look—. I felt utterly alone and deserted by all the world—and the same nervous trembling came over me which once before made me suffer so, and again I was conscious that my cheek was wet with a tear.

The humiliation of it! the disgrace of such feebleness!—

When they had gone by, I started forward again to watch them—I could hear the little girl cry, "Oh! look Alathea!" as she pointed to the sky, and then all three began to quicken their pace down another allée, in the direction of Auteuil, and were soon out of sight.

Then, still quivering with emotion, I too glanced heavenward—Ye Gods! what a storm was coming on—!

Where were they going? there into the deep wood?—it was a good mile or two from the Auteuil gate—They would be soaked to the skin when the rain did commence to fall—and there was a thunder storm beginning also—were they quite safe?

All these thoughts tormented me, and I gave the chauffeur orders to take a road I thought might cut across the path they had followed, and when we reached the spot, I made him wait.

The livid lightning rent the sky and the thunder roared like guns, and the few people in sight rushed, panic-stricken, in a hopeless search for shelter—far greater fear on their faces than they show at German bombs.

My chauffeur complained audibly, as he got down to shut the car—Did Monsieur wish to be struck by lightning? he demanded, very enraged.

Still I waited—but no Sharp family appeared—and at last I knew I had missed them somehow—a very easy thing in that path-bisected wood. So I told him he could drive like hell to my appartement in the Place des Etats Unis—and off we rushed in the now torrential rain—It was one of the worst thunder storms I have ever seen in my life.

I was horribly worried as to what could have happened to that little party, for that alleé where I had seen them, was in the very middle of the Bois, and far from any gate or shelter. They must have got soaking wet if nothing worse had happened to them. And how could I hear anything about them?—What should I do? Was the Duchesse in Paris?—Could I find the address possibly from her? But would she be likely to know it? just because Miss Sharp—"Alathea"—(what a lovely Greek name!) brought bandages to the hospital?

However, this was worth trying, and I could hardly wait to get out of the motor, and get to the telephone. The concierge came out with an umbrella in great concern and took me up in the lift herself—and there was Burton waiting for me, he had come in by train to take me back safely later on.

How I cursed my folly in not having asked Miss Sharp herself for her address! Could Burton possibly know it?—How silly of me not to have thought of that before!

"Burton, I saw Miss Sharp and her family in the Bois—do you know their address by chance?—I want to ring up and find out if they got home all right."

Burton could see my anxiety—and actually hurried in his reply!

"They live in Auteuil, Sir Nicholas, but I can't exactly say where—the young lady never seems very particular to give me the address. She said I should not be needing it, and that they were likely to move."

"Get on to the Duchesse de Courville-Hautevine as quickly as you can—."

Burton did so at once, but it seemed a long time.

—No, Madame la Duchesse was down at Hautevine taking some fresh convalescents, and would not return until the middle of the week—if then!

I nearly swore aloud—.

"Are they talking from the concierge's lodge or the hotel?—Burton ask at both if they know the address of a Miss Sharp who brings bandages to the hospital!"

Of course by this time the connection had been cut off, and it took quite ten minutes to get on again, and by that time I could have yelled aloud with the feverish fret of it all, and the pain!

No one knew anything of a "Mees Shearp."

"Mees Shearp—Mais non!"

Many ladies brought bandages, hein?!

I mastered myself as well as I could and got into my chair—.

And in a few moments Burton brought me a brandy and soda, and put it into my hand.

"It won't be cleared up enough to go back to Versailles before dinner, Sir Nicholas," he said—and coughed—"I was just thinking maybe—you'd be liking some friends to come in and dine—Pierre can get something in from the restaurant, if you'd feel inclined."

The cough meant that Burton knows I am dreadfully upset, and that under the circumstances anything to distract me is the lesser of two evils—!

"Ask whom you please," I answered and drank the brandy and soda down.

Presently, after half an hour, Burton came back to me, beaming—I had been sitting in my chair too exhausted even to feel pain meanwhile—.

He had telephoned everywhere, and no one was in town, but at last, at the Ritz, where the concierge knows all my friends, he had been informed that Mrs. Bruce (Nina) had arrived the night before, alone—he had got connected up at her appartement, and she would be ''round at eight o'clock, very pleased to dine!'

Nina!—A pleasant thrill ran through me—Nina, and without Jim—!

The wood fire was burning brightly, and the curtains were drawn when Nina, fresh as a rose, came in—.

"Nicholas!" she cried delightedly—and held out both hands.

"Nina!—this is a pleasure, you old dear!—now let me look at you and see what marriage has done—."

Nina drew back and laughed!

"Everything, Nicholas!" she said—.

A feeling of envy came over me—Jim's ankle is stiff for life—it seems hard that an eye can make such a difference!—Nina is in love with Jim, but no woman can be in love with me.

Her face is much softer, she is more attractive altogether.

"You look splendid, Nina," I told her—"I want to hear all about it."

"So you shall when we have finished dinner," and she handed me my crutch as I got up from my chair.

Pierre had secured some quite respectable food, and during dinner and afterwards when we were cosily smoking our cigarettes in the sitting-room, Nina gave me all the news of our friends at home.—Every single one of them was still working, she said.

"It is marvelous how they have stuck it," I responded—.

"Oh no, not at all," Nina answered. "We as a nation are people of habit—the war is a habit to us now—heaps of us work from a sense of duty and patriotism, others because they are afraid what would be said of them if they did not—others because they are thankful to have some steady job to get off their superfluous energy on—So it ends by everyone being roped in—and you can't think, Nicholas, how divine it is to get home after long hours of drudgery, to find the person you love waiting for you, and to know you are going to have all the rest of the time together, until next day!"