te?--Daisy Ryven?--both with husbands--."

"Not as if that prevented things" the Duchesse announced
reflectively--"Well, well--Some of my _blesses_ show just your symptoms,
Nicholas, and I discover almost immediately it is because they are in
love--with the brain--with the imagination you must understand--that is
the only dangerous kind--. When it is with a pretty face alone--a good
dose and a new book helps greatly."

"There would be no use in my being in love, Duchesse--"

"It would depend upon the woman--you want sympathy and a guiding
hand--_Va!_--"

Sympathy and a guiding hand!

"I liked ruling and leading when I was a man--"

"----We all have our ups and downs--I like my own bed--but last night
an extra batch of _blesses_ came in--and I had to give it up to one
whose back was a mass of festers--he would have lain on the floor
else--. What will you--_hein?_--We have to learn to accommodate
ourselves to conditions, my son."

Suddenly the picture of this noble woman's courage came to me vividly,
her unvarying resourcefulness--her common sense--her sympathy with
humanity--her cheerfulness--I never heard her complain or repine, even
when fate took her only son at Verdun--Such as these are the glory of
France--and Coralie and Odette and Alice seemed to melt into
nothingness--.

"The war will be finished this autumn--" she told me presently--"and
then our difficult time will begin--. Quarrels for all the world--Not
good fighting--But you will live to see a Renaissance, Nicholas--and so
prepare for it."

"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 fi