"Darling Nadine, you haven't been kissing Hugh, have you?" asked Esther.
"Yes, I kissed him this evening, when he was putting my cloak on, but there were ninety-five footmen there so it wasn't compromising: we were heavily chaperoned. And I would just as soon have kissed any of the other ninety-five. But he wanted me to, and so I did, and then suddenly I saw how unfair it was for me. It didn't mean anything: I kissed him just as I kiss my dog, because he is such a duck. Also because he wanted me to, which Tobias never does: he always cleans his face on the rug after I have kissed him, and sneezes."
"Did he ask you to?" said Esther,—"not Toby, Hugh!"
"No, but I can see by a man's face when he wants. I saw one of the footmen wanted, too, and perhaps I ought to have kissed him as well, to show Hugh it did not mean anything."
Nadine sat down and spread her hands wide with a surprisingly dramatic gesture of innocence and despair.
"It isn't my fault," she said; "it's me. C'est moi: son' io! I would translate it into all the languages of the world, like the Bible, if that would make Hugh understand. People can't be different from what they are. It's a grand mistake to suppose otherwise. They can act and talk in accordance with what they are, or they can act and talk otherwise, but they, the personalities, are unchangeable except by miracles. I could act contrary to my own self and marry Hugh, but it would be no particle of good. I want him to understand that I can't love him, and I am too fond of him to marry him without. I wish to heaven he would marry somebody else."
"He won't do that," said Esther.
"I am afraid not. I think it is rather selfish. It is putting it all on me. I shall have to marry somebody else, I suppose, and that will be very unselfish of me, because I don't want to marry. Of course one has to: I don't want to grow old, but I shall have to grow old. They are both laws of nature, and perhaps neither the one nor the other is so disagreeable really."
Esther gave her long, appreciative sigh.
"It would be too wonderful of you to marry somebody else, in order to make it clear to Hugh that you couldn't marry him," she said. "It would be the most illustrious thing to do and it shows that really you are devoted to Hugh. But you really think that people don't change, Nadine?"