"Women have no natural sense of truth--they only rise to it through
sublime effort,"--
"And men?"
"It is ingrained in them, they only sink from it to cover their natural
instincts of infidelity."
His voice was contemplative now--.
"How we lie to the little darlings, Nicholas! How we tell them we have
no time to write--when of course we have always time if we really want
to--we never are at a loss for the moments before the creatures are a
secure possession!"
"The whole thing gets back to the hunting instinct, my dear George--I
can't see that one can be blamed for it--."
"I am not blaming, I am merely analysing. Have you remarked that when a
man feels perfectly secure about the woman he will give his hours of
duty to his country, his hours of leisure to his friends who flatter
him, and the crumbs snatched from either to the poor lady of his heart!
But if she excites his senses, and remains problematic, he will skimp
his duty, neglect his friends, and snatch even hours from sleep to spend
them in her company!"
"You don't think then that there is something higher and beyond all this
in love, George?--something which you and I have never come across
perhaps?"
"If one met a woman who was all man in mind, all woman in body, and all
child in soul--it is possible--but where are these phoenixes to be
discovered, my son?--It is wiser not to dissatisfy oneself by thinking
of them--but just go on accepting that which is always accorded to the
very rich!--By the way, I saw Suzette la Blonde dining last night with
old Solly Jesse--_Monsieur le Comte Jessé!_--She had a new string of
pearls on and was stroking his fat hand, while her lips curled with
love--I thought--??"
I lay back in my chair and laughed and laughed--And I had imagined that
Suzette really felt for me, and would grieve for at least a week or
two--but I am replaced in four days--!
I do not think I even felt bitter--all those things seem so far away
now.
When George had gone, I said to myself--"All man in mind"--yes I am sure
she is--"All woman in body"--Certainly that--"All child in soul"--I want
to know about her soul--if we have souls, as Nina says--by the way, I
will send a messenger into the Ritz with a note to ask Nina to spend the
day with me to-morrow. We have got accustomed to the impossible
difficulty of telephoning to Paris, and waiting hours for telegrams--a
messenger is the quickest in the end.
How the war drags on--! Will it really finish this year after
all--people are very depressed these last days--I do not write of any of
this in my journal--others will chronicle every shade--When I let myself
think of it I grow too wild. I become feverish with longing to be up and
with the old regiment--When I read of their deeds--then I grow
rebellious.
* * * * *
_Monday:_
No news--yet--It is unbearable--Burton returned from Auteuil with no
clue whatsoever--except that the _concierge_ at the Hotel de Courville
had never heard of the name of Sharp! That proves to me that "Sharp" is
not Alathea's name at all. He was a newcomer--and there were so many
young ladies who came and went to see Madame la Duchesse that he could
not identify anyone in particular by description.
Nina turned up early on Saturday in time for lunch--She was looking
ravishing in entirely new clothes--like Suzette, she has found that the
"_geste_" is altering--Germans may be attacking Paris--Friends and
relations may be dying in heaps, but women must have new clothes and
fashion must have her say as to their shapes--And what a mercy it is so!
If there was nothing to relieve war and seriousness--all the nations
would be raving lunatics by now.
"Jim will be crazy about you, Nina, when he sees you in that hat!"
"Yes, won't he! I put it on to make you crazy now!"
"Of course I always am!"
"No, Nicholas--you were once--but you are altered, some quite new
influence has come into your life--you don't say half such horrid
things."
We lunched in the restaurant. Some of the Supreme War Council were about
at the different tables, and we exchanged a few words--Nina preferred it
to my sitting-room.
"Englishmen do look attractive in uniform, Nicholas, don't they," she
said--. "I wonder if I had seen Jim in ordinary things if I would have
been so drawn to him?"
"Who knows? Do you remember how sensible you were about him and
Rochester!--it is splendid that it has turned out so well."
" ... Where is happiness, Nicholas?" and her eyes became dreamy,--"I
have a well balanced nature, and am grateful for what has been given me
in Jim, but I can't pretend that I have found perfect content--because
some part of me is always hungry--. I believe really that you were the
only person who could have fulfilled all I wanted in a man!"
"Nina, you had not the least feeling for me when you first saw me after
I was wounded, do you remember you felt like a sister--a mother--and a
family friend!"
"Yes, was not that odd!--because of course the things which used to
attract me in you and which could again now, were there all the time."
"At that moment you were so occupied with 'Jim's blue eyes,' and his
'white nice teeth,' and 'how his hair was brushed,' and 'how well his
uniform fitted'--to say nothing of his D.S.O. and his M.C. that you
could not appreciate anything else."
"You have a V.C., your teeth are divine, and you too have blue eyes,
Nicholas--."
"Eye--please,--the singular or plural in this case makes all the
difference, but I shall have my new one in fairly soon now and then
illusion will help me!"
Nina sighed--.
"Illusion! I am just not going to think of what perhaps might have
happened if I had not been surrounded with illusion, last February--."
"Well, you can always have the satisfaction of knowing that as your
interest in Jim diminishes, so his will increase--George Harcourt and I
thrashed it all out the other day--and you yourself admitted it, when we
dined. To keep the hunting instinct alive is the thing--You will have
the fondest lover when you go back to Queen Street, Nina!"
"I--suppose so--. But would it not be wonderful if one had not to play
any game, but could just love and be so satisfied with each other that
there would not be any fear--."
Nina's eyes were sad--Did she remember my words at our last meeting?
"Yes that would be heaven!"
"Is that what you are dreaming about, Nicholas?"
"Perhaps."
"What a fortunate woman she will be!--And of yourself, what shall you
give her?"
"I shall give her passion--and tenderness, and protection, and
devotion--she shall share the thoughts of my mind and the aspirations of
my soul--."
"Nicholas!--you talking in this romantic way--she must be a miracle!"
"No--she is just a little girl."
"And it is she who has made you think about souls?"
"I expect so--."
"Well, I must not think of them, or of anything but what a good time we
shall all have when the war is over, and what nice things I've bought in
Paris--and of how good-looking Jim is--Let us talk of something else!"
So we spoke of every-day matters--and then we went into the _parc_--and
Nina stayed by my bath chair and amused me. But she does not know
anything about Versailles or its history--and she cannot make
psychological deductions--and all the time I was understanding with one
part of me that her hat was awfully becoming, and everything about her
perfect; and with another part I was seeing that her brain is
limited--and that if I had married her I should have been bored to
death!
And when the evening came and she left me, after our long day, I felt a
sense of relief--Oh! there can be no one in the world like my
Alathea--with her little red hands, and cheap cotton garments! I realize
now that life used to be made up of the physical--and that
something,--perhaps suffering, has taught me that the mental and the
spiritual matter more.
Even if she does come back--how am I to break through the wall of ice
which she has surrounded herself with since the Suzette cheque
business?--I can't explain--she won't even know that I have parted with
her.
Of course she has heard the fluffies often in the next room when they
have come to play bridge in the afternoon. Perhaps she may even have
heard the idiotic things they talk about--yes--of course she must have
an awful impression of me--.
The contrast of her life and theirs--and mine! I shall go on with my
Plato--it bores me--it is difficult, and I am tired--but _I will_!.