though I called
upon it. Funny it might be to eat in the kitchens of inns, but I could
not feel that it was funny to be relegated to the servants' brigade in
the private house of a countryman of my father.

What queerly complicated creatures we little human animals are! An
avalanche of love hadn't destroyed my hunger. A knife-thrust in my
vanity killed it in an instant; and I can't believe this was simply
because I'm female. I shouldn't be surprised if a man might feel exactly
the same--or more so.

"Oh, dear!" I sighed. "It's going to be horrid here. But"--with a stab
of remorse for my self-absorption--"it's just as bad for you as for me.
_You_ don't need to stay in the house, though. You're a man, and free.
Don't stop for my sake. I won't have it! Please live in an inn. There's
sure to be one near by."

"I'm not going to look for it," said my brother. "You needn't worry
about me. I've got pretty callous. I shall have quarters for nothing
here--you're always preaching economy."

But I wouldn't be convinced. "Pooh! You're only saying that, so that I
won't think you're sacrificing yourself for me. Do you know anything
about the Roquemartines?"

"A little."

"Good gracious, I hope you've never met them?"

"I believe I lunched here with them once three years ago, with a
motoring friend of theirs."

He stated this fact so quietly, that, if I hadn't begun to know him and
his ways, I might have supposed him indifferent to the situation; but--I
can hardly say why--I didn't suppose it. I supposed just the contrary;
and I respected him, and his calmness, twenty times more than before, if
that were possible. Besides, I would have loved him twenty times more,
only that was impossible. How much stronger and better he was than I--I,
who blurted out my every feeling! I, a stranger, felt the position
almost too hateful for endurance, simply because it was ruffling to my
vanity. He, an acquaintance of these people, who had been their guest,
resigned himself to herding with their servants, because--yes, I knew
it!--because he would not let me bear annoyances alone.

"You can't, you _shan't_ stop in the house!" I gasped. "Leave me and the
luggage. Drive the car to the nearest village."

"I don't _want_ to leave you. Can't you understand that?" he said. "I'm
not sacrificing myself."

We were at the door. We had been heard. If I had suddenly been endowed
with the eloquence of Demosthenes, the gift would have come too late.
T