Man and Maid

by Elinor Glyn

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."

Once this would have thrilled me—only last Spring! but now the contrariness in me made me say that it was absolutely necessary that I returned immediately to Versailles. I believe I should have answered like that even if there had been no Miss Sharp,—Alathea—in the case, just because I now knew Nina really wanted me to stay—every man is like that, more or less, if only women knew!—The whole sex relation is one of fence—until the object has been secured—and then emotion dies out altogether, or is revived in one or the other, but very seldom in both. Love—real love—is beyond all this I suppose, and does not depend upon whether or no the other person excites one's desire for conquest. Love must be wonderful—I believe Alathea—(I have actually written it naturally this time!—) could love. I never used to think I could, at the best of moments I have analysed my emotions, and stood aside as it were, and measured just how much things were meaning to me.

But when I think of that scrap of a girl, with her elusive ways, her pride, her refinement, even her little red hands—! I have a longing—a passionate longing to hold her always near me—to know that she is mine—that for the rest of time I should be with her, learning from her high thoughts, comforted by her strength of character—believing in her—respecting her—Yes, that is it—respecting her. How few women one meets with attractions that one really respects.—One respects many elderly ones, of course, and abstract splendid creatures, but bringing it down to concrete facts, how few are the women who have drawn one's admiration or excited one's desire, who at the same time one reverenced!—Love must mean reverence—that is it.

And what is reverence—?

The soul's acknowledgment of the purity of another—and purity in this sense means truth and honor, and lofty aims—not the denial of all passion, or the practice of asceticism.

I utterly reverence Alathea, and yet I am sure with that mouth—if she loved me she would be anything but cold. How on God's earth can I make her love me—?

I went back to Versailles after luncheon, having had to see the specialist about my eye, he thinks the socket is so marvelously healed lately, that I could have the glass one in now much sooner than Christmas. I wonder if some self confidence will return when I can feel people are not revolted when looking at me?—That again is super-sensitiveness. Of course no one is revolted—they feel pity—and that is perhaps worse. When I get my leg too, shall I have the nerve to make love to Alathea and use all the arts which used to be so successful in the old days?

I believe if I were back in 1914—I should still be as nervous as a cat when with her—Is this one of the symptoms of love again?

George Harcourt has many maxims upon the subject of love—One is that a Frenchman thinks most of the methods of love—An Englishman more of the sensations of love—and an Austrian of the emotions of love—. I wonder if this is true? He also says that a woman does not really appreciate a man who reverences her sex in the abstract, and is chivalrous about all women,—she rather thinks him a simpleton—. What she does appreciate is a man who holds cynical views about the female sex in general, and shows reverence and chivalry towards herself in particular!