A little fire burned in the grate although it was a summer night. On the bare table of brown oak was a tray set with tea things. “I always like a cup of tea when I come home from a party; it makes me sleep. I’ll get another cup. You remember Mrs. Silas Daborn’s corner cupboard?” She opened it and brought out the china. Pamela looked about her hungrily, silently, at the familiar dumb things which seemed alive that night: warm, vital things that knew her. The hideous china figures on the shelves grinned affably--at a former neighbor. “You must drink this hot.” Pamela began to cry again as the cup was held to her mouth. “Ssh. No. Drink the tea. Tell me everything and have a big cry afterward.” She drank obediently, draining the cup. Then she said in a heartfelt, passionate way, as if she were an ardent convert to a new belief: “There is nothing like another woman when one is miserable.” “Nothing. Men are excellent--when we are happy. At other times they bully us--with the best intentions--putting all our emotions down to hysteria.” “Men are never excellent at any time. They have brought me misery. You pay for one moment of delight with a day of anguish.” “This tray,” said Barbara Clutton, evidently thinking it politic to turn the conversation, “was Mrs. Bert Hone’s. You were with me when I bought it. Do you remember how deaf she was, and how the old man swore--most picturesque swears! Do you remember what I said that day about your brother Edred? How is he?” Pamela started up at the name. “I must tell you everything,” she cried energetically. “It isn’t fair to sit here, to stay in your house without telling you everything.” She told it all without another moment of hesitation: told every little thing. She didn’t care how her story would be received. She relentlessly dissected all her emotions--however unworthy. She detailed all her experiences--however unsavory. It was a relief to be absolutely frank at last, to have no concealment whatever from at least one person. It was a very long story; she touched it up almost lovingly. The night wore away. She drained herself of all the bitterness, all the delight and shame and misery of three years. The fire died out. Hushed sounds in the streets beyond the smugly drawn curtains, a cold, dull light breaking through a chink and marking the wall, were suggestive. Barbara Clutton, who had listened without one word of comment, started to her feet and dragged back the curtains. It was broad daylight in the streets outside. She put her arm around Pamela’s shoulders, with a gesture much more eloquently tender and sympathetic than a torrent of words would have been, and drew her to the window. “Did you ever see such an exquisite flush of pink?” she said, pointing to the sky. “I’ll open the window. There! Such air on one’s cheeks, in one’s thick eyes. We ought to go for a walk while the world is empty.”