"Miss Denham," appealed the young man, in injured innocence, "this lady is very severe upon me. Will you not take my part?"
"But, Mr. Kershaw, you did take even me in for a minute. How can I believe you again?"
"Even you? Was it so? I cry, Peccavi. Even you."
"And now you are laughing at me."
"I? I would not laugh for the world, not even at you."
"I wish I could be even with you, Mr. Kershaw."
"And I wish that I could be evened to you, Miss Denham."
All laughed there; then Mr. Kershaw's accounts of Burma began again, in a curious medley of truth and fiction difficult to separate.
"The Burmese are a very strictly religious sort of folks. They kick off their shoes to pray, and sit upon their heels. They must not take life, not even kill their fleas or their black-beetles; yet they are the most determined murderers on the face of the earth. There is no country in which human life is less considered where offence has been offered."