Man and Maid

The inference of everything she says, does and unconsciously infers, is

that she is a cultivated lady, accustomed to talking with people of our

world--people who know England and its great houses well enough to have

made her familiar with the knowledge of where certain pieces of famous

furniture are.--The very phrasing of her sentences is the phrasing of

our Shibboleth, and not the phrasing of the professional classes.

And yet--she is meanly dressed--does housework--and for years must have

been trained in professional business methods. It is profoundly

interesting.

I have never even questioned Maurice as to how he heard of her.

Well, I write all this down calmly, the record of the morning, to let

myself look back on it, and to where the new intimacy might have led us,

but for the sickening end to the day.

Burton did not question her lunching with me this time--he had given the

order as a matter of course--He is very fine in his distinctions, and

understood that to make any change after she once had eaten with me

would be invidious.

By the time the waiters came in to lay the table, that sense of hurt,

and then of numbness, had worn off--I was quite interested again in the

work, and intensely intrigued about the possible history of the Sharp

family!

I was using cunning, too, and displaying casual indifference, so

watchfulness was allowed to rest a little with the strange girl.

"I believe if you will give me your help I shall be able to make quite

a decent book of it after all,--but does it not seem absurd to trouble

about such thing's as furniture with the world in ruins and Empires

tottering!"--I remarked while the ark-relic handed the omelette--.

"All that is only temporary--presently people will be glad to take up

civilized interests again."

"You never had any doubt as to how the war would end?"

"Never."

"Why?"

"Because I believe in the gallantry of France, and the tenacity of

England, and the--youth of America."

"And what of Germany?"

"The vulgarity."

This was quite a new reason for Germany's certain downfall--! It

delighted me--.

"But vulgarity does not mean weakness!"

"Yes it does--Vulgar people have imperfect sensibilities, and cannot

judge of the psychology of others, they appraise everything by their own

standard--and so cannot calculate correctly possible contingencies--that

shows weakness."

"How wise you are--and how you think!"

She was silent.

"All the fighting nations will be filled with vulgarians even when we do

win, though with most of the decent people killed--" I ventured to

say--.