"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.