“Because I did not bring up the subject of ‘The Sacrifice.’”
I was going to say that to the author of ‘The Sacrifice’ this could be no heroism at all when there was a muffled rattle at the door.
“First call for dinner in the dining car.”
“The coach awaits,” I said.
V
WITH A CLUBWOMAN
She was a young woman of dainty exterior, with entirely modern appointments in the matter of clothes. She was as Burton would have wished her, “affable but not familiar,” capable of those impersonal confidences that mystify the foreigner and delude even the native. Her effect of being imminent yet so far away, of lurking behind a thin though definite barrier, occurred to me one day when I looked up at one of those emergency contrivances in a railway coach which bear the inscription: “In case of accident, break the glass.” She was intensely equipped. Vast resources gleamed behind the glass. I suppose the impression should have been one of security. Perhaps it actually was the impression that an accident would be a great pity.