Her refined voice was level, as though she were controlling herself, not to allow any personal feeling to enter her discourse--her gloved hands were perfectly still in her lap--She was in profile to me so that I could see that her very long eyelashes seemed to be rather pressed against the glasses--I have not before been so close to her in a bright light.--Why does she wear those damned spectacles? I was thinking, when she said-- "You find it hard to be confined to your chair and not to be able to fight, don't you?--Well when you could fight it was not always the pleasure of going over the top? You had to have times in the trenches too, hadn't you--when you just had to bear it?" "Of course--?" "Well--you are in the trenches now, don't you see--and it is according to how your soul learns the lesson of them, as to whether in this life you will ever be allowed to go over the top again--or even to have peace." "What is the lesson?" "I am not God--I cannot tell you--but we would all know what our lesson to learn is, if we were not too vain to face the truth into ourselves." "The aim being?"-- "Why of course to improve character and learn strength." "What qualities do you most admire in a person, Miss Sharp?" "Self control and strength." "You have no sympathy with weaklings?" "None whatever--bad strong people are better than weak good ones." I knew this was true. This fragile creature suggests infinite repose and strength--what could she have done in a former life to bring her back in such unkind surroundings, that she must spend her days in drudgery, so that she has never even leisure to think?--I longed to ask her, but did not dare. "Shall we not begin work now," she suggested--and I demonstrated my first lesson in self control by agreeing, and we did not talk again until luncheon time. "If you don't mind we shall go to the little café by the _lac_," I said--"and then afterwards we can find another place and work again--Burton will have had my wheeled chair brought down there, so we can choose a decent spot in one of the _bosquets_." She nodded slightly--Now that it was not to help my moral regeneration she did not intend to talk any more, it seemed!