Man and Maid

+---------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Transcriber's Notes | | | | 1. Where possible, punctuation has been normalized to contemporary | | standards. | | 2. Diacritical marks are as they appeared in the printed book, and | | may not reflect current usage. | | 3. Obvious typographic and spelling errors have been corrected. | +---------------------------------------------------------------------+

[Illustration: Suzette (Renee Adoree) makes the tedious hours of the wounded Sir Nicholas Thormonde (Lew Cody) seem less monotonous. (A scene from Elinor Glyn's production "Man and Maid" for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer)]

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MAN AND MAID

By ELINOR GLYN

A. L. BURT COMPANY Publishers New York

Published by arrangement with J. B. Lippincott Company Printed in U.S.A.

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COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY ELINOR GLYN

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MAN AND MAID

I

February, 1918.

I am sick of my life--The war has robbed it of all that a young man can find of joy.

I look at my mutilated face before I replace the black patch over the left eye, and I realize that, with my crooked shoulder, and the leg gone from the right knee downwards, that no woman can feel emotion for me again in this world.

So be it--I must be a philosopher.

Mercifully I have no near relations--Mercifully I am still very rich, mercifully I can buy love when I require it, which under the circumstances, is not often.

Why do people write journals? Because human nature is filled with egotism. There is nothing so interesting to oneself as oneself; and journals cannot yawn in one's face, no matter how lengthy the expression of one's feelings may be!

A clean white page is a sympathetic thing, waiting there to receive one's impressions!

Suzette supped with me, here in my appartement last night--When she had gone I felt a beast. I had found her attractive on Wednesday, and after an excellent lunch, and two Benedictines, I was able to persuade myself that her tenderness and passion were real, and not the result of some thousands of francs,--And then when she left I saw my face in the glass without the patch over the socket, and a profound depression fell upon me.

Is it because I am such a mixture that I am this rotten creature?--An American grandmother, a French mother, and an English father. Paris--Eton--Cannes--Continuous traveling. Some years of living and enjoying a rich orphan's life.--The war--fighting--a zest hitherto undreamed of--unconsciousness--agony--and then?--well now Paris again for special treatment.

Why do I write this down? For posterity to take up the threads correctly?--Why?

From some architectural sense in me which must make a beginning, even of a journal, for my eyes alone, start upon a solid basis?

I know not--and care not.

* * * * *

Three charming creatures are coming to have tea with me to-day. They had heard of my loneliness and my savageness from Maurice--They burn to give me their sympathy--and have tea with plenty of sugar in it--and chocolate cake.

I used to wonder in my salad days what the brains of women were made of--when they have brains!--The cleverest of them are generally devoid of a logical sense, and they seldom understand the relative value of things, but they make the charm of life, for one reason or another.