Grey Roses | Page 6

blank sheet of paper. She had a will of her own; she had convictions,
aspirations, traditions, prejudices, which she would hold to with
enthusiasm because they had been her father's, because her father had
taught them to her; and she had manners, habits, tastes. She would be
sure to horrify the people she was going to; she would be sure to resent
their criticism, their slightest attempt at interference. Oh, my heart was
full of misgivings; yet--she had no money, she was eighteen years
old--what else could we advise her to do? All the same, her face, as it
looked down upon us from the window of her railway carriage, white,
with big terrified eyes fixed in a gaze of blank uncomprehending
anguish, kept rising up to reproach me for weeks afterwards. I had her
on my conscience as if I had personally wronged her.
VI.

It was characteristic of her that, during her absence, she hardly wrote to
us. She is of far too hasty and impetuous a nature to take kindly to the
task of letter-writing; her moods are too inconstant; her thoughts, her
fancies, supersede one another too rapidly. Anyhow, beyond the
telegram we had made her promise to send, announcing her safe arrival,
the most favoured of us got nothing more than an occasional scrappy
note, if he got so much; while the greater number of the long epistles
some of us felt in duty bound to address to her, elicited not even the
semblance of an acknowledgment. Hence, about the particulars of her
experience we were quite in the dark, though of its general features we
were informed, succinctly, in a big, dashing, uncompromising hand,
that she 'hated' them.
VII.
I am not sure whether it was late in April or early in May that Nina left
us. But one day towards the middle of October, coming home from the
restaurant where I had lunched, I found in my letter box, in the
concierge's room, two half sheets of paper, folded, with the corners
turned down, and my name superscribed in pencil. The handwriting
startled me a little--and yet, no, it was impossible. Then I hastened to
unfold, and read, and of course it was the impossible which had
happened.
'Mon cher, I am sorry not to find you at home, but I'll wait at the café at
the corner till half-past twelve. It is now midi juste.' That was the first.
The second ran: 'I have waited till a quarter to one. Now I am going to
the Bleu for luncheon. I shall be there till three.' And each was signed
with the initials, N.C.
It was not yet two, so I had plenty of time. But you will believe that I
didn't loiter on that account. I dashed out of the loge--into the
street--down the Boulevard St. Michel--into the Bleu, breathlessly. At
the far end Nina was seated before a marble table, with Madame
Chanve in smiles and tears beside her. I heard a little cry; I felt myself
seized and enveloped for a moment by something like a whirlwind--oh,
but a very pleasant whirlwind, warm and fresh, and fragrant of violets;
I received two vigorous kisses, one on either cheek; and then I was held

off at arm's length, and examined by a pair of laughing eyes.
And at last a voice--rather a deep voice for a woman's, with just a crisp
edge to it, that might have been called slightly nasal, but was agreeable
and individual--a voice said: 'En voilà assez. Come and sit down.'
She had finished her luncheon, and was taking coffee; and if the whole
truth must be told, I'm afraid she was taking it with a petit-verre and a
cigarette. She wore an exceedingly simple black frock, with a bunch of
violets in her breast, and a hat with a sweeping black feather and a
daring brim. Her dark luxurious hair broke into a riot of fluffy little
curls about her forehead, and thence waved richly away to where it was
massed behind; her cheeks glowed with a lovely colour (thanks,
doubtless, to Yorkshire breezes; sweet are the uses of adversity); her
eyes sparkled; her lips curved in a perpetual play of smiles, letting her
delicate little teeth show themselves furtively; and suddenly I realised
that this girl, whom I had never thought of save as one might think of
one's younger sister, suddenly I realised that she was a woman, and a
radiantly, perhaps even a dangerously handsome woman. I saw
suddenly that she was not merely an attribute, an aspect, of another, not
merely Alfred Childe's daughter; she was a personage in herself, a
personage to be reckoned with.
This sufficiently obvious perception came upon me with such force,
and brought me such emotion, that I dare