Man and Maid

"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."