That, of course, admitted me to the peculiar intimacy that women allow to other women, or to poets, or to dangerous men. Edward, I know, dislikes the drinking of China tea because it is against the principle of supporting the British flag. But Miss Averies in her unequal battle with this youth of the classical features slightly vulgarized, called me in to show a sign of sympathy--to give at least the flicker of the other side--of the woman, the poet, or the pessimist among men. She asked me, in fact, not to take up the cudgels to the extent of saying that China tea is the thing to drink--that would have been treason to Edward--but she desired that her instinct should be acknowledged to the extent of saying that the measures of canisters should be contrived to suit the one kind of tea as well as the other. In his blind sort of way Edward caught the challenge in the remark and his straight brows lowered a very little. “If you don’t have more than three pounds of China tea in the house in a year it won’t matter about the measures,” he said. “We never use more at Shackleton.” “But it makes the tea too strong, Edward.” “Then you need not fill the measure,” he answered. “Oh, I wish,” she said to me, “that you’d tell Edward not to make me make tea at all. I dread it. The servants do it so much better.” “So,” I asked, “Edward has arranged everything down to the last detail?” Edward looked to me for approval and applause. “You see, Annie has had so little experience, and I’ve had to look after my mother’s house for years.” His air said: “Yes! You’ll see our establishment will be run on the very best lines! Don’t you admire the way I’m taming her already?” I gave him, of course, a significant glance. Heaven knows why: for it is absolutely true that I am tired of appearing reliable--to Edward Burden or any one else in the world. What I want to do is simply to say to Edward Burden: “No, I don’t at all admire your dragging down a little bundle of ideals and sentiments to your own fatted calf’s level.” I suppose I have in me something of the poet. I can imagine that if I had to love or to marry this little Averies girl I should try to find out what was her tiny vanity and I should minister to it. In some way I should discover from her that she considered herself charming, or discreet, or tasteful, or frivolous, beyond all her fellows. And, having discovered it, I should bend all my energies to giving her opportunities for displaying her charm, her discreetness or her coquetry. With a woman of larger and finer mould--with you!--I should no doubt bring into play my own idealism. I should invest her with the attributes that I consider the most desirable in the world. But in either case I cannot figure myself dragging her down to my own social or material necessities.