dest and
reserved--refuses to talk about it at all--and the effect is that by his
silence he as much as says, 'I do things like this every day. It is as
easy as rolling off a log. You ought to see the really heroic things I
could do if they ever came my way. But this little thing, this little
episode--really, don't you know, I fail to see anything in it remarkable
or unusual.' As for me, if I went up in a powder explosion, or saved a
hundred lives, I'd want all my friends to hear about it, and their
friends as well. I'd be prouder than Lucifer over the affair. Confess,
Mr. Sheldon, don't you feel proud down inside when you've done something
daring or courageous?"

Sheldon nodded.

"Then," she pressed home the point, "isn't disguising that pride under a
mask of careless indifference equivalent to telling a lie?"

"Yes, it is," he admitted. "But we tell similar lies every day. It is a
matter of training, and the English are better trained, that is all. Your
countrymen will be trained as well in time. As Mr. Tudor said, the
Yankees are young."

"Thank goodness we haven't begun to tell such lies yet!" was Joan's
ejaculation.

"Oh, but you have," Sheldon said quickly. "You were telling me a lie of
that order only the other day. You remember when you were going up the
lantern-halyards hand over hand? Your face was the personification of
duplicity."

"It was no such thing."

"Pardon me a moment," he went on. "Your face was as calm and peaceful as
though you were reclining in a steamer-chair. To look at your face one
would have inferred that carrying the weight of your body up a rope hand
over hand was a very commonplace accomplishment--as easy as rolling off a
log. And you needn't tell me, Miss Lackland, that you didn't make faces
the first time you tried to climb a rope. But, like any circus athlete,
you trained yourself out of the face-making period. You trained your
face to hide your feelings, to hide the exhausting effort your muscles
were making. It was, to quote Mr. Tudor, a subtler exhibition of
physical prowess. And that is all our English reserve is--a mere matter
of training. Certainly we are proud inside of the things we do and have
done, proud as Lucifer--yes, and prouder. But we have grown up, and no
longer talk about such things."

"I surrender," Joan cried. "You are not so stupid after all."

"Yes, you have us there," Tudor admitted. "But you wouldn't have had us
if you hadn't