"That, of course, would be heaven--" then she sighed--"I am afraid it is no use in hoping for that, Nicholas!" "Someone who would understand so well that silence was eloquent--someone who would read books with one, and think thoughts with one. Someone who would lie in one's arms and respond to caresses--and not be counting the dollars--or--doing her knitting--. Someone who was tender and kind and true--Oh! Nina!" I suppose my voice had taken on a tone of emotion--I was thinking of Miss Sharp--Alathea--that shall be her name always for me now--. "Nicholas!" Nina exclaimed--"My dear boy, of course you are in love!" "And if so?" Instantly I became of more value to Nina--she realized that she had lost me, and that some other woman drew me and not herself--and although Nina is the best sort in the world and more or less really in love with Jim, I knew that a new note could grow in our friendship if I wished to encourage it--Nina's fighting instinct had been aroused to try to get me back! "Who with?" she demanded laconically. "With a dream--." "Nonsense! you are much too cynical--Is it anyone I know?" "I should not think so--she has not materialised yet." "This is frightfully interesting, my dear old boy!" "So you think I'll have a chance then?" "Certainly when you are all finished." "My new eye is to be in before Christmas, and my new leg after the new year, and my shoulder gets straighter every day!" Nina laughed--. "Real love would be--I suppose--if you could make her adore you before you looked any handsomer!" And this sentence of Nina's rang in my ears long after she had gone, and often in the night. I could not sleep, I felt something had happened and that fate might be going to take Miss Sharp--Alathea--from me--. * * * * * And then before morning in fretful dreams I seemed to be obsessed by the cooing of love words between a woman and a child--. XI Monday was a perfectly impossible day--I spent all the morning before I returned to Versailles in writing to Maurice, telling him he must find out all about Miss Sharp--Alathea--I felt if I told him her Christian name it would be a clue--and yet even to assist in that, which was, at the moment, my heart's desire, I could not overcome my personal dislike to pronounce it to Maurice!--it seemed as something sacred to me alone--which makes me reflect upon how egotistical we all are--and how we would all rather fail in attaining what is our greatest wish than not to be able to express our own personality--! Nina had suggested before she left that I should stay in Paris and come to the theatre with her--. "We could have some delicious old times, Nicholas, now that you are so much better."