And, if you will permit me to say so, sir, you have my
respectful sympathy."
Dignity is a sensitive plant which flourishes only under the fairest
conditions. Sam's had perished in the bleak east wind of Billie's note.
In other circumstances he might have resented this intrusion of a
stranger into his most intimate concerns. His only emotion now, was one
of dull but distinct gratitude. The four winds of heaven blew chilly
upon his raw and unprotected soul, and he wanted to wrap it up in a
mantle of sympathy, careless of the source from which he borrowed that
mantle. If Webster, the valet, felt disposed, as he seemed to indicate,
to comfort him, let the thing go on. At that moment Sam would have
accepted condolences from a coal-heaver.
"I was reading a story--one of the Nosegay Novelettes; I do not know if
you are familiar with the series, sir?--in which much the same
situation occurred. It was entitled 'Cupid or Mammon!' The heroine,
Lady Blanche Trefusis, forced by her parents to wed a wealthy suitor,
despatches a note to her humble lover, informing him it cannot be.
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