Lubimoff understood how futile all his questions would be. His curiosity, no matter how strong and subtle, would fail in contact with that impenetrable reserve. Alicia had disappeared forever ... forever!
He now felt sadder and lonelier than ever before. As he sat there beside this Amazon of human sorrow, he had a feeling of confidence similar to that which the Duchess must have felt during those last few days. It was a desire to make a confession to her, an instinctive impulse to bare his soul, as though from that woman who brought to death beds the light-hearted merriment of a bird, might come the supreme counsel of wisdom.
The Prince nodded his head, murmuring his assent: "Yes, I forgive her." He did not wish the other woman to bear the slightest burden of grief on his account. He would shoulder all that, himself. But immediately afterward he could not resist the impulse of that anguish to express itself. He was himself astonished at the words which, overriding all restraint, escaped from his lips.
"I, too, Lady Lewis, am very unhappy."
The nurse did not show any surprise at such a burst of confidence. She simply continued to smile, and said laconically:
"I know."
Her smile was changing to a look of sweet pity, of beneficent compassion, as though the Prince were a child in need of her advice.
She had guessed his unhappiness long before the Duchess had talked to her in the hours of despairing confession. He believed he was unhappy through being crossed in love; but actually, this sorrow was only the outer shell of another which was deeper and more real, and which depended on himself alone.
He had tried to live apart from his fellow-beings, ignoring their troubles, selfishly withdrawing into a shell. He had wished, by loitering on the margin of humanity which was suffering the greatest crisis in all its history, to prolong the pleasures of peace into a time of war. One could understand such aloofness in a coward, dominated by the instinct of self-preservation; but he was a brave man. One could tolerate it in a man who was burdened with children, who constantly felt the imperious duty of supporting them, and was afraid on that account; but he was alone in the world.
"We are all unhappy, Prince. Who doesn't know grief and death these days?"