"What can I do, dear friend--If you knew how much I want to do
something!"
"Your first duty is to get well.--Have yourself patched
together--finished so to speak, and then marry and found a family to
take the place of all who have perished. It was good taste when I was
young not to have too many--but now!--France wants children--and
England too. There is a duty for you, Nicholas!"
I kissed her hand--.
"If I could find a woman like you!" I cried--"indeed then I would
worship her--."
"So--so--! There are hundreds such as I--when I was young I lived as
youth lives--You must not be too critical, Nicholas."
She was called away then, back to one of the wards, and I hobbled down
the beautiful staircases by myself--the lift was not working. The
descent was painful and I felt hot and tired when I reached the ground
floor, it was quite dusk then, and the one light had not yet been lit. A
slight wisp of a figure passed along the end of the corridor. I could
not see plainly, but I could have sworn it was Miss Sharp--I called her
name--but no one answered me so I went on out,--the servant, aged
ninety, now joining me, he assisted me into my one horse Victoria beyond
the concierge's lodge.
Miss Sharp and the Duchesse!--? Why if this is so have I never been told
about it?--The very moment Maurice returns I must get him to investigate
all about the girl--In the meantime I think I shall go to Versailles--.
I cannot stand Paris any longer--and the masseur can come out there,
it is not an impossible distance away.