"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!"