On Wednesday morning I received a reply from Maurice at Deauville—he hastened to answer he said—He had heard of Miss Sharp through a man in the American Red Cross, where Miss Sharp had been employed. He knew nothing more about her, he had seen her once when he was interviewing her, and Miss whatever the other woman's name was, he had forgotten now—and he had thought her suitable and plain and capable, that is all.

I had tried to word my letter not to give the impression of peculiar interest, but no doubt Coralie, who had returned to the band on Monday, had given him her view of the case, for he added that these people were often designing although they looked simple—and in my loneliness he felt sure I would be happier and better at the sea with my friends—!

I would have been angry, only there was something humorous in the way everyone seems to think I am incapable of managing my own affairs!—What is it they all want of me—? Not that I should be happy in my own way, but that I should contribute to their happiness—they want to participate in what my money is able to procure—and they do not want interference from outside. Every one of my friends—and relations—would be hostile if I were to announce that I was in love with Miss Sharp, and wanted to marry her—Even though it was proved to them that she was pretty—a perfect lady—intelligent—virtuous—clever! She is not of their set and might, and probably would, be a stumbling block in their path when they wished to make use of me!—so she would be taboo! None of them would put it in that way of course, their opposition would be (and they might even think they were sincere) because they were thinking of my happiness!

Burton is the only person whose sympathy I could count upon!

How about the Duchesse?—that is the deepest mystery of all—I must find out from Burton what was the date about when she came to my appartement and found Alathea. Was it before that time when she asked me if I were in love—and I saw that dear little figure in the passage?—Could she have been thinking of her—?

By Thursday when there was no further news I began to feel so restless that I determined to go back to Paris the following week. It was all very well to be out in the parc at Versailles with a mind at ease, but it feels too far away when I am so troubled.

I sent Burton in on Friday to Auteuil—.

"Just walk about near the wine shop, Burton, and try to find out by every clue your not unintelligent old pate can invent, where Miss Sharp lives, and what is happening? Then go to the Hotel de Courville and chat with the concierge—or whatever you think best—I simply can't stand hearing nothing!"

Burton pulled in his lips.

"Very good, Sir Nicholas."

I tried to correct my book in the afternoon. I really am trying to do the things I feel she thinks would improve my character—But I am one gnawing ache for news—Underneath is the fear that some complication may occur which will prevent her returning to me. I find myself listening to every footstep in the passage in case it might be a telegram, so of course quite a number of messages and things were bound to come from utterly uninteresting sources, to fill me with hope and then disappoint me—It is always like that. I really was wild on Friday afternoon, and if George Harcourt had not turned up—he is at the Trianon Palace now with the Supreme War Council—I don't know what I should have done with myself. Lots of those fellows would come and dine with me if I wanted them—some are even old pals—but I am out of tune with my kind.

George was very amusing.

"My dear boy," he said, "Violetta is upsetting all my calculations—she has refused everything I have offered her—But I fear she is beginning to show me too much devotion!"

This seemed a great calamity to him.

"It is terribly dangerous that, Nicholas!—because you know, my dear boy, when a woman shows absolute devotion, a man is irresistibly impelled to offer her a back seat—it is when she appeals to his senses, shows him caprice, and remains an insecure possession, that he will offer her the place his mother held of highest honour."

"George, you impossible cynic!"

"Not at all—I am merely a student of human instincts and characteristics—Half a cynic is a poor creature—A complete one has almost reached the mercy and tolerance of Christ."

This was quite a new view of the subject—!

He went on—.

"You see, when men philosophize about women, they are generally unjust, taking the subject from the standpoint that whatever frailties they have, the male is at all events exempt from them. Now that is nonsense—Neither sex is exempt—and neither sex as a rule will contemplate or admit its failings.—For instance, the sense of abstract truth in the noblest woman never prevents her lying for her lover or her child, yet she thinks herself quite honest—In the noblest man the sense is so strong that it enables him to make only the one exception, that of invariably lying to the woman!"

I laughed—he puffed one of my pre-war cigars—.

"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!.

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