"I don't know what's happening to the country." Anne crumbled her bread, and having reviewed a succession of possible replies, each more fatuous than the last, decided to remain silent. "Everything will be at a standstill directly," her companion went on. "Already trade is leaving the country. America--" "I suppose so," said Anne gloomily. "Once stop the supplies of coal, you see, and you drain the life-blood of the country." "Of _course_," said Anne, and looked very serious. After lunch an extremely brisk little man took her in hand. "Have you been studying this coal strike question at all?" he began. "I read the papers," said Anne. "Ah, but you don't _get_ it there. They don't _tell_ you--they don't _tell_ you. Now I know a man who is actually _in_ it, and he _says_--and he knows this for a _fact_--that from the _moment_ when the _first man_ downed tools--from the very moment when he _downed tools_..." Anne edged away from him nervously. Her face had assumed an expression of wild interest which she was certain couldn't last much longer. "Now, take coal at the pit's mouth," he went on--"at the _pit's mouth_"--he shook a forefinger at her--"at the _pit's mouth_--and I know this for a _fact_--the _royalties_, the royalties are--" "It's awful," said Anne. "I _know_." She went home feeling a little disturbed. There was something in her mind, a dim sense of foreboding, which kept casting its shadow across her pleasanter thoughts; "Just as you feel," she said, "when you _know_ you've got to go to the dentist." But they had a big dinner-party that evening, and Anne, full of the joy of life, was not going to let anything stand in the way of her enjoyment of it. Her man began on the stairs. "Well," he said, "what about the coal strike? When are you going to start your coal-parties? 'Fire, 10--2.' They say that that's going to be the new rage." He smiled reassuringly at her. He was giving the impression that he _could_ have been very, very serious over this terrible business, but that for her sake he was wearing the mask. In the presence of women a man must make light of danger. Anne understood then what was troubling her; and as, half-way through dinner, the man on her other side turned to talk to her, she shot an urgent question at him. At any cost she must know the worst. "_How_ long will the strike last?" she said earnestly. "That's just what I was going to ask you," he said. "I fear it may be months." Anne sighed deeply. * * * * * I took the last sandwich and put down the plate. "And that," said Anne, "was three weeks ago." "It has been the same ever since?" I asked, beginning on a new plate.