u're a great reader, I know."

Her tone was almost bitter. "I suppose you think I read nothing but
Dickens and that sort of thing."

"Well, you might do a good deal worse, you know. There's no one like
Dickens, taking everything together."

She flushed. You could almost see she was going to say something rude.
"That's a very kind thing to say to uneducated people, Mr. Sabre. It
makes them think it isn't education that prevents them enjoying more
advanced writers. But I don't suffer from that, as it so happens. I
daresay some of my reading would be pretty hard even for you."

Sabre felt Mabel pluck at his sleeve. He glanced at her. Her face was
very angry. Miss Bypass, delivered of her sharp words, was deeper
flushed, her head drawn back. He smiled at her. "Why, I'm sure it would,
Miss Bypass. I tell you what, we must have a talk about reading one day,
shall we? I think it would be rather jolly to exchange ideas."

An extraordinary and rather alarming change came over Miss Bypass's hard
face. Sabre thought she was going to cry. She said in a thick voice,
"Oh, I don't really read anything particularly good. It's only--Mr.
Sabre, thank you." She turned abruptly away.

When they were outside, Mabel said, "How extraordinary you are!"

"Eh? What about?"

"Making up to that girl like that! I never heard such rudeness as the
way she spoke to you." Sabre said, "Oh, I don't know."

"Don't know! When you spoke to her so politely and the way she answered
you! And then you reply quite pleasantly--"

He laughed. "You didn't expect me to give her a hard punch in the eye,
did you?"

"No, of course I didn't expect you to give her a hard punch in the eye.
But I should have thought you'd have had more sense of your own dignity
than to take no notice and invite her to have a talk one day."

He thought, "Here we are again!" He said, "Well, but look, Mabel. I
don't think she means it for rudeness. She is rude of course, beastly
rude; but, you know, that manner of hers always makes me feel
frightfully sorry for her."

"Sorry!"

"Yes, haven't you noticed many people like her with that defiant sort of
way of speaking--people not very well educated, or very badly off, or in
rather a dependent position, and most frightfully conscious of it. They
think every one is looking down on them, or patronising them, and the
result is they're on the defensive all the time. Well, that's awfully
pathetic, you know, all your life being on the