Page:The Sacred Fount (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1901).djvu/253

 it up. "If you were so bent on not losing what I might have to give you that you fortunately stuck to the ship, for poor Briss to pick you up, wasn't this also "—she roundly put it to me—"a good deal because you've been nursing all day the grievance with which I this morning so comfortably furnished you?"

I just waited, but fairly for admiration. "Oh, I certainly had my reasons—as I've no less certainly had my luck—for not indeed deserting our dear little battered, but still just sufficiently buoyant vessel, from which everyone else appears, I recognise, to s'être sauvé. She'll float a few minutes more! But (before she sinks!) do you mean by my grievance"

"Oh, you know what I mean by your grievance!" She had no intention, Mrs. Briss, of sinking. "I was to give you time to make up your mind that Mrs. Server was our lady. You so resented, for some reason, my suggesting it that I scarcely believed you'd consider it at all; only I hadn't forgotten, when I spoke to you a while since, that you had nevertheless handsomely promised me that you would do your best."

"Yes, and, still more handsomely, that if I changed my mind, I would eat, in your presence, for my error, the largest possible slice of humble pie. If you didn't see this morning," I continued, "quite why I should have cared so much, so I don't quite 247