g.

I have never even questioned Maurice as to how he heard of her.

Well, I write all this down calmly, the record of the morning, to let
myself look back on it, and to where the new intimacy might have led us,
but for the sickening end to the day.

Burton did not question her lunching with me this time--he had given the
order as a matter of course--He is very fine in his distinctions, and
understood that to make any change after she once had eaten with me
would be invidious.

By the time the waiters came in to lay the table, that sense of hurt,
and then of numbness, had worn off--I was quite interested again in the
work, and intensely intrigued about the possible history of the Sharp
family!

I was using cunning, too, and displaying casual indifference, so
watchfulness was allowed to rest a little with the strange girl.

"I believe if you will give me your help I shall be able to make quite
a decent book of it after all,--but does it not seem absurd to trouble
about such thing's as furniture with the world in ruins and Empires
tottering!"--I remarked while the ark-relic handed the omelette--.

"All that is only temporary--presently people will be glad to take up
civilized interests again."

"You never had any doubt as to how the war would end?"

"Never."

"Why?"

"Because I believe in the gallantry of France, and the tenacity of
England, and the--youth of America."

"And what of Germany?"

"The vulgarity."

This was quite a new reason for Germany's certain downfall--! It
delighted me--.

"But vulgarity does not mean weakness!"

"Yes it does--Vulgar people have imperfect sensibilities, and cannot
judge of the psychology of others, they appraise everything by their own
standard--and so cannot calculate correctly possible contingencies--that
shows weakness."

"How wise you are--and how you think!"

She was silent.

"All the fighting nations will be filled with vulgarians even when we do
win, though with most of the decent people killed--" I ventured to
say--.

"Oh! no--Lots of their souls are not vulgar, only their environment has
caused their outward self-expression to seem so. Once you get below the
pompous _bourgeoisie_ in France, for instance, the more delightful you
find the spirit, and I expect it is the same in England. It is the
pretentious aspiring would-bes who are vulgar--and Germany seems filled
with them,"

"You know it well?"

"Yes, pretty well."

"If it is not a frightfull