We lunched in the restaurant. Some of the Supreme War Council were about at the different tables, and we exchanged a few words—Nina preferred it to my sitting-room.
"Englishmen do look attractive in uniform, Nicholas, don't they," she said—. "I wonder if I had seen Jim in ordinary things if I would have been so drawn to him?"
"Who knows? Do you remember how sensible you were about him and Rochester!—it is splendid that it has turned out so well."
" ... Where is happiness, Nicholas?" and her eyes became dreamy,—"I have a well balanced nature, and am grateful for what has been given me in Jim, but I can't pretend that I have found perfect content—because some part of me is always hungry—. I believe really that you were the only person who could have fulfilled all I wanted in a man!"
"Nina, you had not the least feeling for me when you first saw me after I was wounded, do you remember you felt like a sister—a mother—and a family friend!"
"Yes, was not that odd!—because of course the things which used to attract me in you and which could again now, were there all the time."
"At that moment you were so occupied with 'Jim's blue eyes,' and his 'white nice teeth,' and 'how his hair was brushed,' and 'how well his uniform fitted'—to say nothing of his D.S.O. and his M.C. that you could not appreciate anything else."
"You have a V.C., your teeth are divine, and you too have blue eyes, Nicholas—."
"Eye—please,—the singular or plural in this case makes all the difference, but I shall have my new one in fairly soon now and then illusion will help me!"
Nina sighed—.