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!"
"No, I can't imagine the bliss of that, Nina--."
She looked at me suddenly--.
"Well, why don't you marry then, dear boy?"
"I would, if I thought I could secure bliss--but you forget, it would be
from pity and not love that a woman would be kind to me."
"I am--not quite sure of that, Nicholas"--and she looked at me
searchingly--"You are changed since last time--you are not so bitter and
sardonic--and you, always have that--oh! you know what Elinor Glyn
writes of in her books--that "it."--Some kind of attraction that has no
name--but I am sure has a lot to do with love--."
"So you think I have got 'it,' Nina?"
"Yes, your clothes fit so well--and you say rather whimsical
things--Yes, decidedly, Nicholas, now that you are not so bitter--I am
sure--."
"What a pity you did not find that out before you took Jim, Nina!"
"Oh! Jim! that is different--You have much more brain than Jim, and
would not have been nearly so easy to live with!"
"Is it going well, Nina?"
"Yes--perfectly--that is why I came to Paris alone--I knew it would be
good for him--besides I wanted a rest, Nicholas."
"I thought you had married for a rest!"
"Well, if a man 'in love' is what you really want,--and not his just
'loving' you--you have to use your wits; it can't be a rest, not if he
has made you care too.--When I was just tossing up between Jim and
Rochester, then I had not to bother about how I behaved to them. You see
I was the, as yet, unattained desired thing--but having accepted one of
them, he has time to think of things, not having to fight to get me, and
so I have to keep him thinking of things which have still speculation in
them--don't you see?"
"You have to keep the hunting instinct alive, in fact."
"Yes--"
"You don't think it would be possible to find someone who was just one's
mate so that no game of any sort would be necessary?"
She thought hard for a moment.
"That, of course, would be heaven--" then she sighed--"I am afraid it is
no use in hoping for that, Nicholas!"
"Someone who would understand so well that silence was eloquent--someone
who would read books with one, and think thoughts with one. Someone who
would lie in one's arms and respond to caresses--and not be counting the
dollars--or--doing her knitting--. Someone who was tender and kind and
true--Oh! Nina!"
I suppose my voice had taken on a tone of emotion--I was thinking of
Miss Sharp--Alathea--that shall be her name always for me now--.
"Nicholas!" Nina exclaimed--"My dear boy, of course you are in love!"
"And if so?"
Instantly I became of more value to Nina--she realized that she had lost
me, and that some other woman drew me and not herself--and although Nina
is the best sort in the world and more or less really in love with Jim,
I knew that a new note could grow in our friendship if I wished to
encourage it--Nina's fighting instinct had been aroused to try to get me
back!
"Who with?" she demanded laconically.
"With a dream--."
"Nonsense! you are much too cynical--Is it anyone I know?"
"I should not think so--she has not materialised yet."
"This is frightfully interesting, my dear old boy!"
"So you think I'll have a chance then?"
"Certainly when you are all finished."
"My new eye is to be in before Christmas, and my new leg after the new
year, and my shoulder gets straighter every day!"
Nina laughed--.
"Real love would be--I suppose--if you could make her adore you before
you looked any handsomer!"
And this sentence of Nina's rang in my ears long after she had gone, and
often in the night. I could not sleep, I felt something had happened and
that fate might be going to take Miss Sharp--Alathea--from me--.
* * * * *
And then before morning in fretful dreams I seemed to be obsessed by the
cooing of love words between a woman and a child--.