ve her
beautifully brought up, Nicholas--with the Holy Mother at St. Brieux. I
am then her Aunt--so to speak--the wife of a small shop keeper in
Paris, you must know--She adores me--and I give all I can to _St.
Georges-des-Pres_--. Georgine will be a lady and marry the Mayor's
son--one day--."

Something touched me infinitely. This queer little _demi-mondaine_
mother--her thoughts set on her child's purity, and the conventional
marriage for her--in the future. Her plebeian, insolent little round
face so kindly in repose.

I respect Suzette far more than my friends of the world--.

When she left--it was perhaps in bad taste, but I gave her a quite heavy
four figure cheque.

"For the education of Georgine--Suzette."

She flung her arms round my neck and kissed me frankly on both cheeks,
and tears were brimming over in her merry black eyes.

"Thou hast after all a heart, and art after all a gentleman,
Nicholas--_Va!_--"--and she ran from the room.

VI

For two days after I last wrote, I tried not to see Miss Sharp--I gave
short moments to my book--and she answered a number of business letters.
She knows most of my affairs now,--Burton transmits all the bills and
papers to her.--I can hear them talking through the thin door. The
excitement of that time I was so rude seems to have used up my vitality,
an utter weariness is upon me, I have hardly stirred from my chair.

The ancient guardsman, George Harcourt, came to lunch yesterday. He was
as cynically whimsical as ever--He has a new love--an Italian--and until
now she has refused all his offers of presents, so he is taking a
tremendous interest in her--.

"In what an incredible way the minds of women work, Nicholas!" he
said--"They have frequently a very definite aim underneath, but they
'grasshopper'--."

I looked puzzled I suppose--.

"To 'grasshopper' is a new verb!" he announced--"Daisy Ryven coined
it.--It means just as you alight upon a subject and begin tackling it,
you spring to another one--These lovely American war workers
'grasshopper' continuously.--It is impossible to keep pace with them."

I laughed.

"Yet they seem to have quite a definite aim--to get pleasure out of
life."

[Illustration: Alathea (Harriet Hammond) disguised with colored glasses
and plain clothes arrives to take up her duties as secretary to Sir
Nicholas (Lew Cody). (A scene from Elinor Glyn's production "Man and
Maid" for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer)]

"To 'grasshopper