Chapter 2

"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 so much to-day I did not want to move out of my chair). I could hear Burton's remarks, but they fell upon unheeding ears--Nina is not cut out for a nurse, my poor Burton, if you only knew--!

When she returned to my sitting room tea was in, and she poured it out for me, and then she remarked.

"We have grown so awfully selfish, haven't we, Nicholas, but we aren't such hypocrites as we were before the war. People still have lovers, but they don't turn up their eyes so much at other people having them, as they used. There is more tolerance--the only thing you cannot do is to act publicly so that your men friends cannot defend you--'You must not throw your bonnet over the windmills'--otherwise you can do as you please--."

"You had not thought of taking either Jim or Rochester for a lover to make certain which you prefer?"

Nina looked unspeakably shocked--.

"What a dreadful idea Nicholas!--I am thinking of both _seriously_, not only to pass the time of day remember."

"That is all lovers are for, then Nina?--I used to think--."

"Never mind what you thought, there is no reason to insult me."

"Nothing was farther from my desire."

Nina's face cleared, as it had darkened ominously.

"What will you do if, having married Rochester, you find yourself bored--Will you send for Jim again?"

"Certainly not, that would be disaster. I shan't plunge until I feel pretty certain I am going to find the water just deep enough, and not too deep--and if I do make a mistake, well I shall have to stick to it."

"By Jove what a philosopher," and I laughed--She poured out a second cup of tea, and then she looked steadily at me, as though studying a new phase of me.

"You are not a bit worse off than Tom Green, Nicholas, and he has not got your money, and Tom is as jolly as anything, and everybody loves him, though he is a hopeless cripple, and can't even look decent, as you will be able to in a year or two. There is no use in having this sentiment about war heroes that would make one put up with their tempers, and their cynicism! Everybody is in the same boat, women and men, we chance being maimed by bombs, and we are losing our looks with rough work--for goodness sake stop being so soured--."

I laughed outright--it was all so true.

* * * * *

_Friday_--Maurice brings people to play bridge every afternoon now. Nina has gone back to England--having decided to take Jim!

It came about in this way--She flew in to tell me the last evening before she left for Havre. She was breathless running up the stairs, as something had gone wrong with the lift.

"Jim and I are engaged!"

"A thousand congratulations."

"Rochester had a dinner for me on Wednesday night. All the jolliest people in Paris--some of those dear French who have been so nice to us all along, and some of the War Council and the Ryvens, and so on--and, do you know, Nicholas--I _heard_ Rochester telling Madame de Clerté the same story about his _bon mot_ when a shell broke at Avicourt--as I had already heard him tell Admiral Short, and Daisy Ryven!--that decided me--. There was an element of self-glorification in that modest story--and a man who would tell it _three times_, is not for me! In ten years I should grow into being the listener victim--I could not face it! So I said good-bye to him in the corridor, before up to my room--and I telephoned to Jim, who was in his room on the Cambon side, and he came round in the morning!"

"Was Rochester upset?"

"Rather! but a man of his age--he is forty-two, who can tell a self-story three times is going to get cured soon, so I did not worry."

"And what did Jim say?"

"He was enchanted, he said he knew it would end like that--give a man of forty-two rope enough and he'll be certain to hang himself, he said, and, Oh! Nicholas--Jim is a darling, he is getting quite masterful--I adore him!"

"Senses winning, Nina! Women only like physical masters."

She grew radiant. Never has she seemed so desirable. "I don't care a fig Nicholas! If it is senses, well, then, I know it is the best thing in the World, and a woman of my age can't have everything. I adore Jim! We are going to be married the first moment he can get leave again--and I shall 'wangle' him into being a 'red tab'--he has fought enough."

"And if meanwhile he should get maimed like me--what then, Nina?"

She actually paled.

"Don't be so horrid Nicholas--Jim--Oh! I can't bear it!" and being a strict Protestant, she crossed herself--to avert bad luck!

"We won't think of anything but joy and happiness, Nina, but it is quite plain to me you had better have a fortnight at the sea!"

She had forgotten the allusion, and turned puzzled brown eyes upon me.

"You know--to balance yourself when you feel you are falling in love"--I reminded her.

"Oh! It is all stuff and nonsense! I know now I adore Jim--good-bye Nicholas"--and she hugged me--as a sister--a mother--and a family friend--and was off down the stairs again.

Burton had brought me in a mild gin and seltzer, and it was on the tray, near, so I drank it, and said to myself, "Here is to the Senses--jolly good things"--and then I telephoned to Suzette to come and dine.

* * * * *

There is a mole on the left cheek of Suzette, high up near her eye, there are three black hairs in it--I had never seen them until this morning--_c'est fini_--_je ne puis plus_!

* * * * *

Of course we have all got moles with three black hairs in them--and the awful moment is when suddenly they are seen--That is the tragedy of life--disillusion.

I cannot help being horribly introspective, Maurice would agree to whatever I said, so there is no use in talking to him--I rush to this journal, it cannot look at me with fond watery eyes of reproach and disapproval--as Burton would if I let myself go to him.

_May 16th_--The times have been too anxious to write, it is over two months since I opened this book. But it cannot be, it cannot be that we shall be beaten--Oh! God--why am I not a man again to fight! The raids are continuous--All the fluffies and nearly everyone left Paris in the ticklish March and April times, but now their fears are lulled a little and many have returned, and they rush to cinemas and theatres, to kill time, and jump into the rare taxis to go and see the places where the raid bombs burst, or Bertha shells, and watch the houses burning and the crushed bodies of the victims being dragged out. They sicken me, this rotten crew--But this is not all France--great, dear, brave France--It is only one section of useless society. To-day the Duchesse de Courville-Hautevine came to call upon me--mounted all the stairs without even a wheeze--(the lift gave out again this morning!)--What a personality!--How I respect her! She has worked magnificently since the war began, her hospital is a wonder, her only son was killed fighting gloriously at Verdun.

"You look as melancholy as a sick cat," she told me.

She likes to speak her English--"Of what good _Jeune homme_! We are not done yet--I have cut some of my relatives who ran away from Paris--Imbeciles! Bertha is our diversion now, and the raids at night--jolly loud things!"--and she chuckled, detaching her scissors which had got caught in the purple woolen jersey she wore over her Red Cross uniform. She is quite indifferent to coquetry, this grande dame of the _ancien regime_!

"My _blessés_ rejoice in them--_Que voulez vous?_--War is war--and there is no use in looking blue--Cheer up, young man!"

Then we talked of other things. She is witty and downright, and her every thought and action is kindly. I love la Duchesse--My mother was her dearest friend.

When she had stayed twenty minutes--she came over close to my chair.

"I knew you would be bitter at not being in the fight, my son," she said, patting me with her once beautiful hand, now red and hardened with work, "So I snatched the moments to come to see you. On your one leg you'll defend if the moment should come,--but it won't! And you--you wounded ones, spared--can keep the courage up. _Tiens!_ you can at least pray, you have the time--I have not--_Mais le Bon Dieu_ understands--."

And with that she left me, stopping to arrange her tightly curled fringe (she sticks to all old styles) at the lac mirror by the door. I felt better after she had gone--yes, it is that--God--why can't I fight!

III

Is some nerve being touched by the new treatment? I seem alternately to be numb and perfectly indifferent to how the war is going, and then madly interested. But I am too sensitive to leave my flat for any meals--I drive whenever one of the "fluffies" (this is what Maurice calls the widow, the divorcée and other rejoicers of men's war hearts) can take me in her motor--No one else has a motor--There is no petrol for ordinary people.

"It reminds one of Louis XV's supposed reply to his daughters"--I said to Maurice yesterday. "When they asked him to make them a good road to the Château of their dear _Gouvernante_, the Duchesse de la Bove--He assured them he could not, his mistresses cost him too much! So they paid for it themselves, hence the '_Chemin des Dames_.'"

"What reminds you of what--?" Maurice asked, looking horribly puzzled.

"The fluffies being able to get the petrol--."

"But I don't see, the connection?"

"It was involved--the mistresses got the money which should have made the road in those days, and now--."

Maurice was annoyed with himself; he could not yet see, and no wonder, for it _was_ involved!--but I am angry that the widow and the divorcée both have motors and I none!

"Poor Odette--she hates taxis! Why should she not have a motor?--You are _grinchant_, _mon cher_!--since she takes you out, too!"

"Believe me, Maurice, I am grateful, I shall repay all their kindnesses--they have all indicated how I can best do so--but I like to keep them waiting, it makes them more keen."

Maurice laughed again nervously.

"It is divine to be so rich, Nicholas"!

* * * * *

All sorts of people come to talk to me and have tea (I have a small hoard of sugar sent from a friend in Spain). Amongst them an ancient guardsman in some inspection berth here--He, like Burton, knows the world.

He tests women by whether or no they take presents from him, he tells me. They profess intense love which he returns, and then comes the moment (he, like me, is disgustingly rich). He offers them a present, some accept at once, those he no longer considers; others hesitate, and say it is too much, they only want his affection--He presses them, they yield--they too, are wiped off the list--and now he has no one to care for, since he has not been able to find one who refuses his gifts. It would be certainly my case also--were I to try.

"Women"--he said to me last night--"are the only pleasure in life--men and hunting bring content and happiness, work brings satisfaction, but women and their ways are the only _pleasure_."

"Even when you know it is all for some personal gain?"

"Even so, once you have realized that, it does not matter, you take the joy from another point of view, you have to eliminate vanity out of the affair, your personal vanity is hurt, my dear boy, when you feel it is your possessions, not yourself, they crave, but if you analyse that, it does not take away from the pleasure their beauty gives you--the tangible things are there just as if they loved you--I am now altogether indifferent as to their feelings for me, as long as their table manners are good, and they make a semblance of adoring me. If one had to depend upon their real disinterested love for their kindness to one, then it would be a different matter, and very distressing, but since they can always be caught by a bauble--you and I are fortunately placed, Nicholas."

We laughed our vile laughs together.--It is true--I hate to hear my own laugh. I agree with Chesterfield, who said that no gentleman should make that noise!

* * * * *

As I said before, all sorts of people come to see me, but I seem to be stripping them of externals all the time. What is the good in them? What is the truth in them? Strip me--if I were not rich what would anyone bother with me for? Is anyone worth while underneath?

One or other of the fluffies come almost daily to play bridge with me, and any fellow who is on leave, and the neutrals who have no anxieties, what a crew! It amuses me to "strip" them. The married one, Coralie, has absolutely nothing to charm with if one removes the ambience of success, the entourage of beautiful things, the manicurist and the complexion specialist, the Reboux hats, and the Chanel clothes. She would be a plain little creature, with not too fine ankles,--but that self-confidence which material possessions bring, casts a spell over people.--Coralie _is_ attractive. Odette, the widow, is beautiful. She has the brain of a turkey, but she, too, is exquisitely dressed and surrounded with everything to enhance her loveliness, and the serenity of success has given her magnetism. She announces platitudes as discoveries, she sparkles, and is so ravishing that one finds her trash wit. She thinks she is witty, and you begin to believe it!

Odette can be best stripped, people could like her just for her looks. Alice, the divorcée, appeals to one.--She is gentle and feminine and clinging--she is the cruelest and most merciless of the three, Maurice tells me, and the most difficult to analyse: But most of one's friends would find it hard to stand the test of denuding them of their worldly possessions and outside allurements, it is not only the fluffies, who would come out of not much value!

Oh! the long, long days--and the ugly nights!

One does not sleep very well now, the noise of "Bertha" from six A.M. and the raids at night!--but I believe I grow to like the raids--and last night we had a marvelous experience. I had been persuaded by Maurice to have quite a large dinner party. Madame de Clerté, who is really an amusing personality, courageous and agreeable, and Daisy Ryven, and the fluffies, and four or five men. We were sitting smoking afterwards, listening to de Volé playing, he is a great musician. People's fears are lulled, they have returned to Paris. Numbers of men are being killed,--"The English in heaps--but what will you!" the fluffies said, "they had no business to make that break with the Fifth Army! Oh! No! and, after all, the country is too dull--and we have all our hidden store of petrol. If we must fly at the last moment, why on earth not go to the theatre and try to pass the time!"

de Volé was playing "Madame Butterfly"--when the sirens went for a raid--and almost immediately the guns began--and bombs crashed. One very seldom sees any fear on people's faces now, they are accustomed to the noise. Without asking any of us, de Volé commenced Chopin's Funeral March. It was a very wonderful moment, the explosions and the guns mingling with the splendid chords. We sat breathless--a spell seemed to be upon us all--We listened feverishly. de Volé's face was transfigured. What did he see in the dim light?--He played and played. And the whole tragedy of war--and the futility of earthly interests--the glory, the splendour and the agony seemed to be brought home to us. From this, as the noise without became less loud, he glided into Schubert, and so at last ceased when the "all clear" commenced to rend the air. No one had spoken a word, and then Daisy Ryven laughed--a queer little awed laugh. She was the only Englishwoman there.

"We are keyed up," she said.

And when they had all gone I opened my window wide and breathed in the black dark night. Oh! God--what a rotter I am.

* * * * *

_Friday_--Maurice has a new suggestion--he says I should write a book--he _knows_ I am becoming insupportable, and he thinks if he flatters me enough I'll swallow the bait, and so be kept quiet and not try him so much.--A novel?--A study of the causes of altruism? What?--I feel--yes, I feel a spark of interest. If it could take me out of myself--I shall consult the Duchesse--I will tell Burton to telephone and find out if I can see her this afternoon. She sometimes takes half an hour off between four and five to attend to her family.

Yes--Burton says she will see me and will send me one of her Red Cross cars to fetch me, then I can keep my leg up.

I rather incline to a treatise upon altruism and the philosophical subjects. I fear if I wrote a novel it would be saturated by my ugly spirit, and I should hate people to read it. I must get that part of me off in my journal, but a book about--Altruism?

I must have a stenographer of course, a short-hand typist, if I do begin this thing. There are some English ones here no doubt. I do not wish to write in French--Maurice must find me a suitable one.--I won't have anything young and attractive. In my idiotic state she might get the better of me! The idea of some steady employment quite bucks me up.

* * * * *

I felt rather jarred when I arrived at the Hotel Courville--the paving across the river is bad; but I found my way to the Duchesse's own sitting room on the first floor--the only room apparently left not a ward--and somehow the smell of carbolic had not penetrated here. It was too hot, and only a little window was open.

How wonderfully beautiful these eighteenth century rooms are! What grace and charm in the panelling--what dignity in the proportions! This one, like all rooms of women of the Duchesse's age, is too full--crammed almost, with gems of art, and then among them, here and there, a shocking black satin stuffed and buttoned armchair, with a bit of woolwork down its centre, and some fringe! And her writing table!--the famous one given by Louis XV to the ancestress, who refused his favours--A mass of letters and papers, and reports, a bottle of creosote and a feather! A servant in black, verging upon ninety, brought in the tea, and said Madame la Duchesse would be there immediately--and she came.

Her twinkling eyes kindly as ever "Good day Nicholas," she said and kissed me on both cheeks, "Thou art thy mother's child--_Va!_--And I thank thee for the fifty thousand francs for my _blessés_--I say no more--_Va!_--."

Her scissors got caught in her pocket, not the purple jersey this time, and she played with them for a minute.

"Thou art come for something--out with it!"

"Shall I write a book?, that's it. Maurice thinks it might divert me--What do you think?"

"One must consider," and she began pouring out the tea, "paper is scarce--I doubt, my son, if what you would inscribe upon it would justify the waste--but still--as a _soulagement_--an asperine so to speak--perhaps--yes. On what subject?"

"That is what I want your advice about, a novel?--or a study upon Altruism, or--or--something like that?"

She chuckled and handed me my tea, thin tea and a tiny slice of black bread, and a scrape of butter. There is no cheating of the regulations here, but the Sevres cup gave me satisfaction.

"You have brought me your bread coupon, I hope?" she interrupted with,--"if you eat without it one of my household has less!"

I produced it.

"Two days old will do here," then she became all interest in my project again and chuckled anew.

"Not a novel my son, at your age and with your temperament, it would arouse emotions in you if you created them in your characters, you are better without them.--No!--Something serious; Altruism as well as another, by all means!"

"I expected you to say that, you are always so practical and kind, then we will choose a research subject to keep me busy."

"Why not the history of Blankshire, your old county where the Thormondes have sat since the conquest--_hein_?"

This delighted me, but I saw the impossibility. "I cannot get at the necessary reference books, and it is impossible to receive anything from England."

She realized this before I spoke.

"No--philosophy it must be--or your pet hobby, the furniture of your William and Mary!"

This seemed the best of all, and I decided in a moment. This shall be my subject. I really know something of William and Mary furniture! So we settled it. Then she became reflective.

"The news is _très grave_ to-day, my son," she whispered softly, "the fearful ones predict that the Boche will be within range in a few days.--Why not leave Paris?"

"Are you going, Duchesse?"

"I,--_Mon Dieu!_--Of course not!--I must stay to get my _Blessés_ out--if the worst should come--but I never believe it.--Let the cowards flee--. Some of my relatives have gone again. Those I speak to will have become a minority when peace arrives, it would seem!"--then she frowned angrily. "Many are so splendid--devoted, untiring, but there are some--!--_Mon Dieu!_ the girls play tennis at the _tix aux pigeons_!--and the Germans are sixty-five kilometers from Paris!"

I did not speak, and then, as though I had said something disparaging and she must defend them--"But you must not judge them hardly--No!--it is not possible with our National temperament that young girls of the world can nurse men--No--No--and our ministry of War won't employ women--what can they do--ask yourself, what can they do?--but wait and pray! Other nations must not judge us--our men know what they want of us--yes, yes--"

"Of course they do."

"My niece Madelaine--a lighthead--dragged me to the Ritz to lunch last week, before the wild rush cleared them off again--_Mon Dieu!_ what a sight there in that restaurant!--Olivier and the waiters are the only things of dignity left! The women dressed to the eyes as Red Cross nurses. Some Americans, and, yes, French--nursing the well English officers I must believe--no nearer wounded than that!--floating veils, painted lips--high heels--Heavens! it filled me with rage--I who know the devoted and good of both nations who are not seen, and you English--. But there it is easy for you with your temperament to be good and really work--France is full of sensible kind Americans and English--but those in Paris--they make me sick! Quarter of an hour twice a day--to have the right to a passport to come--and to wear a uniform--Pah! Sick, sick!--"

I thought of the fluffies!--they too played at something the first year of the war, but now have given up even the pretence of that.

The Duchesse was still angry.

"My nephew Charles, le Prince de Vimont, eats chicken and cutlets on the meatless days, he told me with pride, his _maître d'hôtel_--he of the one eye--like thou, Nicholas, is able to procure plenty on the day before from friends in the trade, and with ice--_Mon Dieu!_--and I pay twenty-eight francs apiece for the best poulets for my _blessés_ for extra rations!--and ice!--impossible to procure--. Oh! I would punish them all, choke them with their own meat--it is they who should be "food for the guns" as you English say,--they, these few disgrace our brave France, and make the other nations laugh at us."

I tried to assure her that no one laughed, and that we all understood and worshipped the spirit of France, that it was only the few, and that we were not deceived, but I could not calm her.

"It makes me weep" at last she said and I could not comfort her.