Mr. Burke allowed all the noble reproach of a hunger-striking suffragist to appear in those blue eyes of his as he looked down at me. "Child, have you the heart of a stone?" he asked seriously. "'Hurry,' says she! Hurry! To a starving man who has walked from the Refuge here on his flat feet, without so much as a crumb of lunch or the memory of a drink to fortify him! Hurry? Is that all you can think of?" Well, then, of course---- One can't let a man starve, can one? So---- I was simply forced to do what I could for this undeserving late-comer in the way of feeding him after his tramp across the downs. I gave him a seat on the rug. I foraged in the re-packed luncheon baskets, and got him a clean plate, knives, forks, glass.... I brought out all that was left by the "Refuge" party of the hunter's beef, the cold chicken, the ham, the steak-and-kidney pie, and the jam pasty that had been made by the Serio-girl, who is in her "off" moments a particularly good cook. The Honourable Jim did appreciate the meal! Also he seems to enjoy having a woman to wait hand and foot upon him. In fact he "made errands" for me among the devastated luncheon baskets in the shadow of the car. He demanded pepper (which had been forgotten). He wanted more claret (when all had been finished). Finally he demanded whole-meal bread instead of the ordinary kind. "There isn't any," I said. "Why not?" he demanded, aggrieved. I laughed at him across the big table-napkin that I had spread as a cloth, pinning it down with four of the irregular, sun-heated flints that lay loose on the turf all about us. I said: "I suppose you're accustomed to have everything 'there' that you happen to want?" "I am not," said the Honourable Jim. "But I'm accustomed to getting it 'there' one way or another." "I see. Is there anything else that I ought to do for you that I've forgotten?" "There is. You haven't called me 'Sir,'" said the Honourable Jim. "I like you to call me 'Sir.'" Immediately I made up my mind that the word should never pass my lips to him again. But he went on eating heartily, chattering away between the mouthfuls.... I scarcely know what the man said! But I suppose all kinds of worthless people have that gift of making themselves "at home" in any company they like, and of carrying on that flow of talk that they contrive to make sound amusing, although it looks perfectly silly written down.... One can't imagine anybody really sterling (like my Mr. Brace, for example) exploiting a characteristic of this sort. The Honourable Jim is "at" it the whole time. Just to keep his hand in, of course! (I never cease to see through him.) At last he finished lunching. He pulled out a very pretty platinum cigarette-case. (I wondered who he had "wangled" that out of.) "Miss Lovelace, you don't smoke?" "No, thank you. I don't." "Ah! That's another pleasing thing about you, is it?" This made me sorry I hadn't taken one of his horrid fat cigarettes.