"Love?" and she smoothed out the fringe on her silk jersey with her war-hardened hand--the hand I once loved to kiss--every blue vein on it!--"I often, wonder what really is love, Nicholas--I thought I loved you before the war--but, of course, I could not have--because I don't feel anything now--and if I had really loved you, I suppose it would not have made any difference." Then she realized what she had said and got up and came closer to me. "That was cruel of me, I did not mean to be--I love you awfully as a sister--always." "Sister Nina!--well, let us get back to love--perhaps the war has killed it--or it has developed everything, perhaps it now permits a sensitive, delicious woman like you to love two men." "You see, we have become so complicated"--she puffed smoke rings at me--"One man does not seem to fulfill the needs of every mood--Rochester would not understand some things that Jim would, and _vice versa_--I do not feel any glamour about either, but it is rest and certainty, as I told you, Nicholas, I am so tired of working and going home to Queen Street alone." "Shall you toss up?" "No--Rochester is coming up from the front to-morrow just for the night, I am going to dine with him at Larue's--alone, I shall sample him all the time--I sampled Jim when he was last in London a fortnight ago--" "You will tell me about it when you have decided, won't you, Nina. You see I have become a brother, and am interested in the psychological aspects of things." "Of course I will"--then she went on meditatively, her rather plaintive voice low. "I think all our true feeling is used up, Nicholas--our souls--if we have souls--are blunted by the war agony. Only our senses still feel. When Jim looks at me with his attractive blue eyes, and I see the D.S.O. and the M.C., and his white nice teeth--and how his hair is brushed, and how well his uniform fits, I have a jolly all-overish sensation--and I don't much listen to what he is saying--he says lots of love--and I think I would really like him all the time. Then, when he has gone I think of other things, and I feel he would not understand a word about them, and because he isn't there I don't feel the delicious all-overish sensation, so I rather decide to marry Rochester--there would be such risk--because when you are married to a man, it is possible to get much fonder of him. Jim is a year younger than I am--It would be a strain, perhaps in a year or two--especially if I got fond." "You had better take the richer," I told her--"Money stands by one, it is an attraction which even the effects of war never varies or lessens," and I could hear that there was bitterness in my voice. "You are quite right," Nina said, taking no notice of it--"but I don't want money--I have enough for every possible need, and my boy has his own. I want something kind and affectionate to live with." "You want a master--and a slave." "Yes." "Nina, when you loved me--what did you want?"