Man and Maid

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"Burton, I saw Miss Sharp and her family in the _Bois_--do you know
their address by chance?--I want to ring up and find out if they got
home all right."

Burton could see my anxiety--and actually hurried in his reply!

"They live in Auteuil, Sir Nicholas, but I can't exactly say where--the
young lady never seems very particular to give me the address. She said
I should not be needing it, and that they were likely to move."

"Get on to the Duchesse de Courville-Hautevine as quickly as you can--."

Burton did so at once, but it seemed a long time.

--No, Madame la Duchesse was down at Hautevine taking some fresh
convalescents, and would not return until the middle of the week--if
then!

I nearly swore aloud--.

"Are they talking from the _concierge's_ lodge or the hotel?--Burton ask
at both if they know the address of a Miss Sharp who brings bandages to
the hospital!"

Of course by this time the connection had been cut off, and it took
quite ten minutes to get on again, and by that time I could have yelled
aloud with the feverish fret of it all, and the pain!

No one knew anything of a "Mees Shearp."

"Mees Shearp--_Mais non_!"

Many ladies brought bandages, _hein_?!

I mastered myself as well as I could and got into my chair--.

And in a few moments Burton brought me a brandy and soda, and put it
into my hand.

"It won't be cleared up enough to go back to Versailles before dinner,
Sir Nicholas," he said--and coughed--"I was just thinking maybe--you'd
be liking some friends to come in and dine--Pierre can get something in
from the restaurant, if you'd feel inclined."

The cough meant that Burton knows I am dreadfully upset, and that under
the circumstances anything to distract me is the lesser of two evils--!

"Ask whom you please," I answered and drank the brandy and soda down.

Presently, after half an hour, Burton came back to me, beaming--I had
been sitting in my chair too exhausted even to feel pain meanwhile--.

He had telephoned everywhere, and no one was in town, but at last, at
the Ritz, where the _concierge_ knows all my friends, he had been
informed that Mrs. Bruce (Nina) had arrived the night before, alone--he
had got connected up at her _appartement_, and she would be ''round at
eight o'clock, very pleased to dine!'

Nina!--A pleasant thrill ran through me--Nina, and without Jim--!

The wood fire was burning brightly, and the curtains were drawn when
Nina, fresh as a rose, came in--.

"Nicholas!" she cried delightedly--and held out both hands.

"Nina!--this is a pleasure, you old dear!--now let me look at you and
see what marriage has done--."

Nina drew back and laughed!

"Everything, Nicholas!" she said--.

A feeling of envy came over me--Jim's ankle is stiff for life--it seems
hard that an eye can make such a difference!--Nina is in love with Jim,
but no woman can be in love with me.

Her face is much softer, she is more attractive altogether.

"You look splendid, Nina," I told her--"I want to hear all about it."

"So you shall when we have finished dinner," and she handed me my crutch
as I got up from my chair.

Pierre had secured some quite respectable food, and during dinner and
afterwards when we were cosily smoking our cigarettes in the
sitting-room, Nina gave me all the news of our friends at home.--Every
single one of them was still working, she said.

"It is marvelous how they have stuck it," I responded--.

"Oh no, not at all," Nina answered. "We as a nation are people of
habit--the war is a habit to us now--heaps of us work from a sense of
duty and patriotism, others because they are afraid what would be said
of them if they did not--others because they are thankful to have some
steady job to get off their superfluous energy on--So it ends by
everyone being roped in--and you can't think, Nicholas, how divine it is
to get home after long hours of drudgery, to find the person you love
waiting for you, and to know you are going to have all the rest of the
time together, until next day!"

"No, I can't imagine the bliss of that, Nina--."

She looked at me suddenly--.

"Well, why don't you marry then, dear boy?"

"I would, if I thought I could secure bliss--but you forget, it would be
from pity and not love that a woman would be kind to me."

"I am--not quite sure of that, Nicholas"--and she looked at me
searchingly--"You are changed since last time--you are not so bitter and
sardonic--and you, always have that--oh! you know what Elinor Glyn
writes of in her books--that "it."--Some kind of attraction that has no
name--but I am sure has a lot to do with love--."

"So you think I have got 'it,' Nina?"

"Yes, your clothes fit so well--and you say rather whimsical
things--Yes, decidedly, Nicholas, now that you are not so bitter--I am
sure--."

"What a pity you did not find that out before you took Jim, Nina!"

"Oh! Jim! that is different--You have much more brain than Jim, and
would not have been nearly so easy to live with!"

"Is it going well, Nina?"

"Yes--perfectly--that is why I came to Paris alone--I knew it would be
good for him--besides I wanted a rest, Nicholas."

"I thought you had married for a rest!"

"Well, if a man 'in love' is what you really want,--and not his just
'loving' you--you have to use your wits; it can't be a rest, not if he
has made you care too.--When I was just tossing up between Jim and
Rochester, then I had not to bother about how I behaved to them. You see
I was the, as yet, unattained desired thing--but having accepted one of
them, he has time to think of things, not having to fight to get me, and
so I have to keep him thinking of things which have still speculation in
them--don't you see?"

"You have to keep the hunting instinct alive, in fact."

"Yes--"

"You don't think it would be possible to find someone who was just one's
mate so that no game of any sort would be necessary?"

She thought hard for a moment.

"That, of course, would be heaven--" then she sighed--"I am afraid it is
no use in hoping for that, Nicholas!"

"Someone who would understand so well that silence was eloquent--someone
who would read books with one, and think thoughts with one. Someone who
would lie in one's arms and respond to caresses--and not be counting the
dollars--or--doing her knitting--. Someone who was tender and kind and
true--Oh! Nina!"

I suppose my voice had taken on a tone of emotion--I was thinking of
Miss Sharp--Alathea--that shall be her name always for me now--.

"Nicholas!" Nina exclaimed--"My dear boy, of course you are in love!"

"And if so?"

Instantly I became of more value to Nina--she realized that she had lost
me, and that some other woman drew me and not herself--and although Nina
is the best sort in the world and more or less really in love with Jim,
I knew that a new note could grow in our friendship if I wished to
encourage it--Nina's fighting instinct had been aroused to try to get me
back!

"Who with?" she demanded laconically.

"With a dream--."

"Nonsense! you are much too cynical--Is it anyone I know?"

"I should not think so--she has not materialised yet."

"This is frightfully interesting, my dear old boy!"

"So you think I'll have a chance then?"

"Certainly when you are all finished."

"My new eye is to be in before Christmas, and my new leg after the new
year, and my shoulder gets straighter every day!"

Nina laughed--.

"Real love would be--I suppose--if you could make her adore you before
you looked any handsomer!"

And this sentence of Nina's rang in my ears long after she had gone, and
often in the night. I could not sleep, I felt something had happened and
that fate might be going to take Miss Sharp--Alathea--from me--.

* * * * *

And then before morning in fretful dreams I seemed to be obsessed by the
cooing of love words between a woman and a child--.

XI

Monday was a perfectly impossible day--I spent all the morning before I
returned to Versailles in writing to Maurice, telling him he must find
out all about Miss Sharp--Alathea--I felt if I told him her Christian
name it would be a clue--and yet even to assist in that, which was, at
the moment, my heart's desire, I could not overcome my personal dislike
to pronounce it to Maurice!--it seemed as something sacred to me
alone--which makes me reflect upon how egotistical we all are--and how
we would all rather fail in attaining what is our greatest wish than not
to be able to express our own personality--!

Nina had suggested before she left that I should stay in Paris and come
to the theatre with her--.

"We could have some delicious old times, Nicholas, now that you are so
much better."

Once this would have thrilled me--only last Spring! but now the
contrariness in me made me say that it was absolutely necessary that I
returned immediately to Versailles. I believe I should have answered
like that even if there had been no Miss Sharp,--Alathea--in the case,
just because I now knew Nina really wanted me to stay--every man is like
that, more or less, if only women knew!--The whole sex relation is one
of fence--until the object has been secured--and then emotion dies out
altogether, or is revived in one or the other, but very seldom in both.
Love--real love--is beyond all this I suppose, and does not depend upon
whether or no the other person excites one's desire for conquest. Love
must be wonderful--I believe Alathea--(I have actually written it
naturally this time!--) could love. I never used to think I could, at
the best of moments I have analysed my emotions, and stood aside as it
were, and measured just how much things were meaning to me.

But when I think of that scrap of a girl, with her elusive ways, her
pride, her refinement, even her little red hands--! I have a longing--a
passionate longing to hold her always near me--to know that she is
mine--that for the rest of time I should be with her, learning from her
high thoughts, comforted by her strength of character--believing in
her--respecting her--Yes, that is it--_respecting her_. How few women
one meets with attractions that one really respects.--One respects many
elderly ones, of course, and abstract splendid creatures, but bringing
it down to concrete facts, how few are the women who have drawn one's
admiration or excited one's desire, who at the same time one
reverenced!--Love must mean reverence--that is it.

And what is reverence--?

The soul's acknowledgment of the purity of another--and purity in this
sense means truth and honor, and lofty aims--not the denial of all
passion, or the practice of asceticism.

I utterly reverence Alathea, and yet I am sure with that mouth--if she
loved me she would be anything but cold. How on God's earth can I make
her love me--?

I went back to Versailles after luncheon, having had to see the
specialist about my eye, he thinks the socket is so marvelously healed
lately, that I could have the glass one in now much sooner than
Christmas. I wonder if some self confidence will return when I can feel
people are not revolted when looking at me?--That again is
super-sensitiveness. Of course no one is revolted--they feel pity--and
that is perhaps worse. When I get my leg too, shall I have the nerve to
make love to Alathea and use all the arts which used to be so successful
in the old days?

I believe if I were back in 1914--I should still be as nervous as a cat
when with her--Is this one of the symptoms of love again?

George Harcourt has many maxims upon the subject of love--One is that a
Frenchman thinks most of the methods of love--An Englishman more of the
sensations of love--and an Austrian of the emotions of love--. I wonder
if this is true? He also says that a woman does not really appreciate a
man who reverences her sex in the abstract, and is chivalrous about all
women,--she rather thinks him a simpleton--. What she does appreciate is
a man who holds cynical views about the female sex in general, and shows
reverence and chivalry towards herself in particular!

This I feel is probably the truth--!

I did not expect to hear anything of Alathea on the Monday, she was not
due until Tuesday at eleven o'clock, but when I came in from my sunset
on the terrace, I found two telegrams, all the first one said was--

"Extremely sorry will be unable to come to-morrow, brother
seriously ill.
A. Sharp--."

And no address!

So I could not send sympathy, or even offer any help--I could have sworn
aloud! The storm had wrecked its vengeance on someone, then, and the
poor little chap had probably taken cold.

If I could only be of some use to them--Perhaps getting the best Doctor
is out of their reach. I was full of turmoil while I tore open the other
blue paper--this was from Suzette--.

"I come this evening at eight."

It was nearly seven o'clock now, so I could not put her off--and I am
not sure that I wanted to--Suzette is a human being and kindly, and her
heart is warm.

When Burton was dressing me I told him of Miss Sharp's telegram.

"The poor young lady!" he said--.

Burton always speaks of her as the "young lady"--he never makes a
mistake about class.

Suzette for him is "Mam'zell"--and he speaks of her as a mother might
about her boy's noisy, tiresome rackety school friends--necessary evils
to be put up with for the boy's sake--The fluffies he announces always
by their full titles--"Madame la Comtesse"--etc., etc., with a face of
stone. Nina and the one or two other Englishwomen he is politely
respectful to, but to Miss Sharp he is absolutely reverential--she might
be a Queen!

"I expect the poor little fellow got wet through yesterday," I
hazarded--.

"He's that delicate," Burton remarked.

So Burton knows something more about the family than I do after all--!

"How did you know he was delicate, Burton, or even that Miss Sharp had a
brother?"

"I don't exactly know, Sir Nicholas--it's come out from one time to
another--the young lady don't talk."

"How did you guess, then?"

"I've seen her anxious when I've brought in her tray--sometimes, and
once I ventured to say to her--'I beg pardon Miss, but can I do anything
for you,' and she took off her glasses sudden like--and thanked me, and
said it was her little brother she was worrying about--and you may
believe me or not as you like, Sir Nicholas, but her eyes were full of
tears."

I wonder if Burton guessed the deep emotion he was causing me--My little
darling! with her beautiful blue eyes full of tears, and I impotent to
comfort or help her--!

"Yes--yes?" I said--.

"She told me then that he'd been delicate since birth, and she feared
the winter in Paris for him--I do believe Sir, it's that she works so
hard for, to get him away south."

"Burton--what the devil can we do about it?"

"I don't very well know, Sir Nicholas--Many's the time I've badly wanted
to offer her the peaches and grapes and other things, to take back to
him--but of course I know my place better than to insult a lady--tisn't
like as if she were of another class you see Sir--she'd have grabbed 'em
then, but bein' as she is, she'd have been bound to refuse them, and it
might have tempted her for him and made things awkward."

Burton not only knows the world but has tact--!

He went on, now once started.

"I saw her outside a wine shop once when I got off the tram at
Auteuil--She was looking at the bottles of port--and I made so as to
pass, and her not see me, but she turned and said friendly
like--'Burton, do you suppose this shop would keep really good port--?'
I said as how I would go in and see, and she came with me--They had some
fairly decent--though too young, Sir Nicholas, and it was thirty-five
francs the bottle--I saw she had not an idea it would be as much as
that--her face fell--Do you know, Sir, I could see she hadn't that much
with her,--it was the day before she's paid you see--her colour came and
went--then she said--'I wonder Burton if you could oblige me with paying
the ten extra francs until to-morrow--I must have the best!'--You may
believe me, Sir Nicholas, I got out my purse quick enough--and then she
thanked me so sweet like--'The Doctor has ordered it for my mother,
Burton,' she said--'and of course she couldn't drink any but the best!'"

"Who on earth can she be, Burton? It does worry me--can't you possibly
find out? I would so like to help them."

"I feel that, Sir--but here's the way I figure it--When gentry lives in
foreign towns and don't seem anxious for you to know their address it
don't seem right like to pry into it."

"Burton, you dear old brick!--well supposing we don't try to pry, but
just try how we can possibly help her--You could certainly be
sympathetic about the brother since she has spoken to you--and surely
something can be done--? I saw her at the Duchesse's you know--do you
suppose she knows her--?"

"I do, Sir Nicholas--I never meant to speak of it, but one day Her Grace
came to see you and you were out and she caught sight of Miss Sharp
through the half open door--and she jumped like a cat, Her Grace did,
'Halthee'--she cried out--or some name like that,--and Miss Sharp
started up and went down the stairs with her--She seemed to be kind of
explaining, and I am not sure that Her Grace was too pleased--."

(Burton thinks all Duchesses should be called "Grace" whether they are
French or English.)

"Then we should certainly be able to find out from the Duchesse--."

"Well, I would not be so sure of that Sir Nicholas--You see the Duchesse
is a very kind lady, but she is a lady of the world, and she may have
her reasons."

"Then what do you suggest, Burton?"

"Why, I hardly know--perhaps to wait and see, Sir Nicholas."

"Masterly inactivity!"

"It might be that I could do a bit of finding out if I felt sure no harm
could come of it."

I was not quite certain what Burton meant by this--What possible harm
could come of it?

"Find out all you can and let me know--."

* * * * *

Suzette opened the door and came in just as I finished dressing--Burton
left the room.--She was pouting.

"So the book is not completed, Nicholas?--and the English Mees comes
three times a week--_hein_?"

"Yes--does that upset you?"

"I should say!"

"May I not have a secretary?--You will be objecting to my Aunt coming to
stay with me, or my dining with my friends--next!"

I was angry--.

"No--_mon ami_--not that--they are not for me--those--but a secretary--a
'Mees'--_tiens_?--for why do you want us two?"

"You _two_! good Lord! Do you think, Suzette--_Mon Dieu!_"--I now became
very angry. "My secretary is here to type my book--. Let us understand
one another quite--You have overstepped the mark this time, Suzette, and
there must be an end. Name whatever sum you want me to settle on you and
then I don't ever wish to see you again."

She burst into frantic weeping. She had meant nothing--she was
jealous--she loved me--even going to the sea could do nothing for her! I
was her _adore_--her sun, moon and stars--of what matter a leg or an
eye--! I was her life--her _Amant_!!

"Nonsense, Suzette!--you have told me often it was only because I was
very rich--now be sensible--these things have to have an end some day. I
shall be going back to England soon, so just let me make you comfortable
and happy and let us part friends--."

She still stormed and raged--'There was someone else--it was the
"Mees"--I had been different ever since she had come to the flat--She,
Suzette, would be revenged--she would kill her--!'

Then I flew into a rage, and dominated her, and when I had her
thoroughly frightened I appealed to the best in her--and when she was
sobbing quietly Burton came in to say that dinner was ready--his face
was eloquent!

"Don't let the waiters see you like that," I said.

Suzette rushed to the glass and looked at herself, and then began
opening her gold chain bag to get out her powder and lip grease--I went
on into the salon and left her--.

What an irony everything is--! When I was yearning for tenderness and
love--, even Suzette's, I was unable to touch her, and now because I am
quite indifferent, both she and Nina, in their separate ways, have begun
to find me attractive. So there is nothing in it really, it is only as
to whether or no you arouse the hunting instinct!

Suzette wore an air of deep pathos during our repast--. She had put some
blue round her eyes to heighten the effect of the red of the real tears,
and she appeared very pretty and gentle--It had not the slightest effect
upon me--I found myself looking on like a third person. The mole with
its three black hairs seemed to be the only salient point about her.

Poor little Suzette!--How glad I felt that I had never even pretended a
scrap of love for her!

That astonishing sense of the fitness of things which so many of these
women possess, showed itself as the evening wore on--. Finding the
situation hopeless, Suzette accepted it, curbed the real emotion in
herself and played the game--She tried to amuse me--and then we
discussed plans for her future. A villa at Monte Carlo she decided at
last--A _bijou_ of a place! which she knew of--. And when we parted at
about eleven o'clock everything was arranged satisfactorily. Then she
said good-bye to me--She would go back to Paris by the last train--.

"Good-bye, Suzette!"--and I bent down and kissed her forehead--"You have
been the jolliest little pal possible--and remember that I have
appreciated it,--and you will always have a real friend in me!"

She burst into tears once more--real tears--.

"_Je t'aime bien!_" she whispered--"I shall go to Deauville--_Va!_"

We wrung hands, and she went to the door, but there she turned, and some
of her old fire came back to her--.

"Pah! these English Meeses! thin, stiff, _ennuyeuse_!--thou wilt yet
regret thy Suzette, Nicholas!" and with this she left me.

* * * * *

So that episode in my life is ended--and I shall never repeat the
experiment.

But are not women the most amazing creatures!

You adore them and give them abject devotion and they treat you as
dirt--nothing can be so cruel as the tenderest hearted woman is to a
male slave--! Another woman appears upon the scene--then the first one
begins to treat you with some respect. You grow masterful--love is
aroused in her. You become indifferent--and very often it is she who
then turns into the slave!--The worst of it is that when you really care
you are incapable of playing a game successfully. The woman's
subconscious mind _knows_ that it is merely pretense--and so she remains
a tyrant.--It is only when she herself has ceased to put forth
sufficient attraction to keep you and you are growing numb that you can
win out and find your self-respect again.

There was a moment when I was very angry with Suzette and almost shaking
her, when I saw in her eyes the first look of real passionate
affection--!

Are there any women in the world who could be mates?--who would be able
to love one, and hold one at the same time--satisfying one's mind and
one's spirit and one's body--?--Could Alathea--?--I do not know.

I had got this far in my speculations when a note was brought to me by a
smart French maid--it was now past eleven at night--.

It was from Coralie--.

"I am here, _cher Ami_--I am rather in a difficulty--Can I come to your
sitting-room?"

I scribbled "of course"--and in a moment she came--seductive and
distressful. Duquesnois had been recalled to the front suddenly--her
husband would be back on the morrow--. Might she stay and have some St.
Galmier water with me--could we ring the bell and order it, so that the
waiter might see her there?--because if the husband asked anything--he
could be sure it was only the much wounded Englishman, and he would not
mind--!!

I was sympathetic!--the St. Galmier came.

Coralie did not seem in a hurry to drink it, she sat by the fire and
talked, and looked at me with her rather small expressive eyes--and
suddenly I realized that it was not to save any situation that even a
complacent and much-tried war-husband might object to, but just to talk
to me alone--!!

She put forth every charm she possessed for half an hour--I led her
on--watching each move with interest and playing right cards in return.
Coralie is very well born and never could be vulgar or blatant, so it
was all entertaining for me. This is the first time she has had the
chance of being quite alone. We fenced--I showed enough _empressement_
not to discourage her too soon----and then I allowed myself to be
natural, which was being completely indifferent--and it worked its usual
charm!

Coralie grew restless--she got up from the sofa she stood by the
fire--she came at last quite close up to my chair--.

"What is there about you, Nicholas," she cooed, "which makes one forget
that you are wounded--. When I saw you even in the _parc_--with that
_demoiselle_ I felt--that--"--She looked down with a sigh--.

"How hard upon Duquesnois, Coralie! a good-looking, whole man!"

"I have tired of him, _Mon ami_--he loves me too much--the affair has
become tame--."

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