"You say you cannot pretend. Cannot you flatter?"

"I can pretend to that extent, and sometimes do. But why should I
flatter you? I don't believe you care a bit about it. You love a kindly
truth. Who doesn't? I've just told you a kindly truth."

"I should like to tell you some kindly truths," he said.

"I'm afraid there are not many you, or any one else, could tell. I dare
say there are one or two, though, for I believe there is in every one
of us a little bit--almost infinitesimal, perhaps--of ineradicable good,
a tiny flame which no amount of drenching can ever extinguish."

"I know it."

"Oh, but it does want cherishing--cherishing--cherishing all the time,
the tiny flame of ineradicable good."

She took his cup quickly, and began to pour out some more tea for him,
like one ashamed of an outburst and striving to cover it up by action.

"Bring Doctor Isaacson to see me one day--if he'll come," she said, in a
changed, cool voice, the non-committal voice of the trained woman of the
world.

He felt that the real woman had for an instant risen to the surface, and
had sunk again into the depths of her; that she was almost ashamed of
this real, good woman. And he longed to tell her so, to say to her,
"Don't be ashamed. Let me see the real woman, the good woman. That is