be, and then I shall have to watch my looks, and
remember to play the game all the time, and it won't be restful--above
all, I want rest and security."

"You are not really in love with either, Nina?"

"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 marr