e
the fondest lover when you go back to Queen Street, Nina!"

"I--suppose so--. But would it not be wonderful if one had not to play
any game, but could just love and be so satisfied with each other that
there would not be any fear--."

Nina's eyes were sad--Did she remember my words at our last meeting?

"Yes that would be heaven!"

"Is that what you are dreaming about, Nicholas?"

"Perhaps."

"What a fortunate woman she will be!--And of yourself, what shall you
give her?"

"I shall give her passion--and tenderness, and protection, and
devotion--she shall share the thoughts of my mind and the aspirations of
my soul--."

"Nicholas!--you talking in this romantic way--she must be a miracle!"

"No--she is just a little girl."

"And it is she who has made you think about souls?"

"I expect so--."

"Well, I must not think of them, or of anything but what a good time we
shall all have when the war is over, and what nice things I've bought in
Paris--and of how good-looking Jim is--Let us talk of something else!"

So we spoke of every-day matters--and then we went into the _parc_--and
Nina stayed by my bath chair and amused me. But she does not know
anything about Versailles or its history--and she cannot make
psychological deductions--and all the time I was understanding with one
part of me that her hat was awfully becoming, and everything about her
perfect; and with another part I was seeing that her brain is
limited--and that if I had married her I should have been bored to
death!

And when the evening came and she left me, after our long day, I felt a
sense of relief--Oh! there can be no one in the world like my
Alathea--with her little red hands, and cheap cotton garments! I realize
now that life used to be made up of the physical--and that
something,--perhaps suffering, has taught me that the mental and the
spiritual matter more.

Even if she does come back--how am I to break through the wall of ice
which she has surrounded herself with since the Suzette cheque
business?--I can't explain--she won't even know that I have parted with
her.

Of course she has heard the fluffies often in the next room when they
have come to play bridge in the afternoon. Perhaps she may even have
heard the idiotic things they talk about--yes--of course she must have
an awful impression of me--.

The contrast of her life and theirs--and mine! I shall go on with my
Plato--it bores me--it is difficult, and I am tired--but _