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 drop. This provoked me, as her last remark showed how far from stupid she is. That nervous feeling overcame me again--Confound the woman! "Please read," I said at last in desperation, and I closed my one eye. She picked up a book--it happened to be a volume of de Musset--and she read at random--her French is as perfect as her English--The last thing I remember was "_Mimi Pinson_"--and when I awoke it was past six o'clock and she had gone home.