"I think, monsieur, I know why you look so sad. It is because of what you have to laugh at in your country…. But please go on and tell me what happened to—how say you it?—the jester."
"Ah yes. Well, G. B. Shaw——"
"What is this—G. B.?"
"Those are his names—Gor' Blime Shaw."
Pippa sighed. It was very difficult to become interested in people of such strange nomenclature.
"What did he, then, this Gor Shaw?" she asked, feeling that the story must end sometime.
"Well, as a matter of fact, he was rather a poor jester, because his only joke was to stand on his head. At first every one laughed; but after a while they thought that it was his natural position, and paid no attention to him. It was really pretty hard on the poor chap, because he was too old to learn any new tricks, and he used to become dizzy from being upside-down so much. Finally he grew furious at the king for not laughing, and urged all the women who did not like Convention to murder him. When the war came along they saw their chance. The men went away, and the real women of England were too busy helping them to bother about anything else. You see, Pippa, in our country we have the noisy, chattering, selfish women who do good by lime-light and find their reward in the illustrated journals. But there are also those, the unrecognized and unthanked ones, who share others' griefs, but suffer alone. It is the unseen, unheard women of Britain who are really wonderful."
The girl said nothing, but her face, so suggestive of color in its elusive change of expression, softened to a tender mood that left her eyes very dark and somber, and her lips curved slightly into a smile that was full of sympathy.
The young Canadian subaltern looked directly at her and compressed his lower lip with his teeth.
"What's the matter, dearie?" croaked the woman beside him; but he returned no answer.