Man and Maid

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!"