t the tea.

"If you will be so kind," I said--"I have let Burton go out"--Mercifully
this was true--she came in as a person would who knew you had a right to
command--you could not have said if she minded or no.

When she was near me I felt happier for some reason.

She asked me how I took my tea--and I told her--.

"Are you not going to have some with me?" I pleaded.

"Mine is already on my table in the next room--thank you"--and she rose.

In desperation I blurted out--.

"Please--do not go!--I don't know why, but I feel most awfully rotten
to-day."

She sat down again and poured out her cup.

"If you are suffering shall I read to you?" she said--"It might send you
to sleep--" and somehow I fancied that while her firm mouth never
softened, perhaps the eyes behind the horn spectacles might not be so
stony. And yet with it all something in me resented her pity, if she
felt any. Physical suffering produces some weaknesses which respond to
sympathy, and the spirit rages at the knowledge that one has given way.
I never felt so mad in all my year of hell that I cannot be a man and
fight--as I did at that moment.

A French friend of mine said--In English books people were always
having tea--handing cups of tea! Tea, tea--every chapter and every
scene--tea! There is a great deal of truth in it--tea seems to bring the
characters together--at tea time people talk, it is the excuse to call
at that hour of leisure. We are too active as a nation to meet at any
other time in the day, except for sport--So tea is our link and we shall
go down through the ages as tea fiends--because our novelists who
portray life accurately, chronicle that most of the thrilling scenes of
our lives pass among tea cups!--I ventured to say all this to Miss Sharp
by way of drawing her into conversation.

"What could one describe as the French doing most often?"--I asked
her--.

She thought a moment.

"They do not make excuses for anything they do, they have not to have a
pretext for action as we have--They are much less hypocritical and
self-conscious."

I wanted to make her talk--.

"Why are we such hypocrites?"

"Because we have set up an impossible standard for ourselves, and hate
to show each other that we cannot act up to it."

"Yes, we conceal every feeling--We show indifference when we feel
interest--We pretend we have come on business when we have come simply
to see someone we are attracted by--."

She let the conversation