Man and Maid | Page 4

love."
For a minute I thought she was going to insinuate that I had aroused her reflection--I warmed--but no--She had taken me seriously when I told her I required no blandishments.
That ugly little twinge came to me again.
"You like the English?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"They are very bons gar?ons, they are clean, and they are fine men, they have sentiment, too--Yes, it is difficult not to feel," she sighed.
"What do you do when you fall in love then, Suzette?"
"Mon ami, I immediately go for a fortnight to the sea--one is lost if one falls in love dans le metier--The man tramples then--tramples and slips off--For everything good one must never feel."
"But you have a kind heart Suzette--you feel for me?"
"Hein?"--and she showed all her little white pointed teeth--"Thou?--Thou art very rich, mon chou. Women will always feel for thee!"
It went in like a knife it was so true--.
"I was a very fine Englishman once," I said.
"It is possible, thou art still, sitting, and showing the right profile--and full of chic--and then rich, rich!"
"You could not forget that I am rich, Suzette?"
"If I did I might love you--Jamais!"
"And does the sea help to prevent an attack?"--
"Absence--and I go to a poor place I knew when I was young, and I wash and cook, and make myself remember what la vie dure was--and would be again if one loved--Bah! that does it. I come back cured--and ready only to please such as thou, Nicholas!--rich, rich!"
* * *
And she laughed again her rippling gay laugh--
We had a pleasant evening, she told me the history of her life--or some of it--They were ever the same from Lucien's Myrtale.
* * *
When all of me is aching--Shall I too, find solace if I go to the sea?
Who knows?

II
I have been through torture this week--The new man wrenches my shoulder each day, it will become straight eventually, he says. They have tried to fit the false leg also, so those two things are going on, but the socket is not yet well enough for anything to be done to my left eye--so that has defeated them. It will be months before any real improvement takes place.
There are hundreds of others who are more maimed than I--in greater pain--more disgusting--does it give them any comfort to tell the truth to a journal?--or are they strong enough to keep it all locked up in their hearts?--I used to care to read, all books bore me now--I cannot take interest in any single thing, and above all, I loathe myself--My soul is angry.
Nina came again, to luncheon this time. It was pouring with rain, an odious day. She told me of her love affairs--as a sister might--Nina a sister!
She can't make up her mind whether to take Jim Bruce or Rochester Moreland, they are both Brigadiers now, Jim is a year younger than she is.
"Rochester is really more my mate, Nicholas," she said, "but then there are moments when I am with him when I am not sure if he would not bore me eventually, and he has too much character for me to suppress--Jim fascinates me, but I only hold him because he is not sure of me--If I marry him he will be, and then I shall have to watch my looks, and remember to play the game all the time, and it won't be restful--above all, I want rest and security."
"You are not really in love with either, Nina?"
"Love?" and she smoothed out the fringe on her silk jersey with her war-hardened hand--the hand I once loved to kiss--every blue vein on it!--"I often, wonder what really is love, Nicholas--I thought I loved you before the war--but, of course, I could not have--because I don't feel anything now--and if I had really loved you, I suppose it would not have made any difference."
Then she realized what she had said and got up and came closer to me.
"That was cruel of me, I did not mean to be--I love you awfully as a sister--always."
"Sister Nina!--well, let us get back to love--perhaps the war has killed it--or it has developed everything, perhaps it now permits a sensitive, delicious woman like you to love two men."
"You see, we have become so complicated"--she puffed smoke rings at me--"One man does not seem to fulfill the needs of every mood--Rochester would not understand some things that Jim would, and vice versa--I do not feel any glamour about either, but it is rest and certainty, as I told you, Nicholas, I am so tired of working and going home to Queen Street alone."
"Shall you toss up?"
"No--Rochester is coming up from the front to-morrow just for the night, I am going to dine with him at Larue's--alone, I shall sample him all the time--I sampled Jim when he was last in London a fortnight ago--"
"You will tell me about