Man and Maid. Glyn Elinor

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СКАЧАТЬ 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 it when you have decided, won't you, Nina. You see I have become a brother, and am interested in the psychological aspects of things."

      "Of course I will"—then she went on meditatively, her rather plaintive voice low.

      "I think all our true feeling is used up, Nicholas—our souls—if we have souls—are blunted by the war agony. Only our senses still feel. When Jim looks at me with his attractive blue eyes, and I see the D.S.O. and the M.C., and his white nice teeth—and how his hair is brushed, and how well his uniform fits, I have a jolly all-overish sensation—and I don't much listen to what he is saying—he says lots of love—and I think I would really like him all the time. Then, when he has gone I think of other things, and I feel he would not understand a word about them, and because he isn't there I don't feel the delicious all-overish sensation, so I rather decide to marry Rochester—there would be such risk—because when you are married to a man, it is possible to get much fonder of him. Jim is a year younger than I am—It would be a strain, perhaps in a year or two—especially if I got fond."

      "You had better take the richer," I told her—"Money stands by one, it is an attraction which even the effects of war never varies or lessens," and I could hear that there was bitterness in my voice.

      "You are quite right," Nina said, taking no notice of it—"but I don't want money—I have enough for every possible need, and my boy has his own. I want something kind and affectionate to live with."

      "You want a master—and a slave."

      "Yes."

      "Nina, when you loved me—what did you want?"

      "Just you, Nicholas—just you."

      "Well, I am here now, but an eye and a leg gone, and a crooked shoulder, changes me;—so it is true love—even the emotion of the soul, depends upon material things—"

      Nina thought for a while.

      "Perhaps not the emotion of the soul—if we have souls?—but what we know of love now certainly does. I suppose there are people who can love with the soul, I am not one of them."

      "Well, you are honest, Nina."

      She had her coffee and liqueur, she was graceful and composed and refined, either Jim or Rochester will have a very nice wife.

      Burton coughed when she had left.

      "Out with it, Burton!"

      "Mrs. Ardilawn is a kind lady, Sir Nicholas."

      "Charming."

      "I believe you'd be better with some lady to look after you, Sir—."

      "To hell with you. Telephone for Mr. Maurice—I don't want any woman—we can play piquet."

      This is how my day ended—.

      Maurice and piquet—then the widow and the divorcée for dinner—and now alone again! The sickening rot of it all.

      Sunday—Nina came for tea—she feels that I am a great comfort to her in this moment of her life, so full of indecision—It seems that Jim has turned up too, at the Ritz, where Rochester still is, and that his physical charm has upset all her calculations again.

      "I am really very worried Nicholas," she said, "and you, who are a dear family friend"—I am a family friend now!—"ought to be able to help me."

      "What the devil do you want me to do, Nina?—outset them both, and ask you to marry me?"

      "My dearest Nicholas!" it seemed to her that I had suggested that she should marry father Xmas! "How funny you are!"

      Once it was the height of her desire—Nina is eight years older than I am—I can see now her burning eyes one night on the river in the June of 1914, when she insinuated, not all playfully, that it would be good to wed.

      "I think you had better take Jim my dear, after all. You are evidently becoming in love with him and you have proved to me that the physical charm matters most—or if you are afraid of that, you had better do as another little friend of mine does when she is attracted—she takes a fortnight at the sea!"

      "The sea would be awful in this weather! I should send for both in desperation!" and she laughed and began to take an interest in the furnishings of my flat. She looked over it, and Burton pointed out all its merits to her (My crutch hurts my shoulder СКАЧАТЬ