Man and Maid | Page 4

I am alone, and what shall I do all the evening? or all the
other evenings--? I will send for Suzette to dine.
* * *

Night--Suzette--was amusing--. I told her at once I did not require her
to be affectionate.
"You can have an evening's rest from blandishments, Suzette."
"Merci!"--and then she stretched herself, kicked up her little feet, in
their short-vamped, podgy little shoes, with four-inch heels, and lit a
cigarette.
"Life is hard, Mon ami"--she told me--"And now that the English are
here, it is difficult to keep from falling in 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 garçons, 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