E. F. Benson

“ Sybil nodded. There invaded her prim, pretty face a look of fixed determination to take no credit for this.
"Why, naturally," she said. "I suppose you will, too. I think it is our duty, at whatever inconvenience, to do what we can, and set an example."
The ghost of a smile trembled on Queenie's face.
"You are a teetotaler yourself, darling, anyhow, aren't you?" she asked.
"Yes, but that is not the point. It is a very different thing if one banishes alcohol from the house altogether. ”

“ Just now, in the course of her investigations into the haycock of garments which she and Sybil were employed on, she had found that some inspired contributor had stuffed the pockets of an almost prehistoric dress-coat with a variety of bewildering objects. There were a pipe, a box of matches, a phial of patent medicine, and two socks, the socks, as common objects in a ballroom devoted to charity, had a recognised depository, so, too, the pipes and the matches. ”

“ Now, in this stress of need and destitution, they had become simple and simply feminine again, and yet Queenie missed in them all, even as she missed in her sister and herself, the note of personal self-sacrifice. They helped others now, instead of amusing themselves, because their natures revolted from the idea of amusing themselves. ”

“ She could no more have borne to see herself employed in anything that did not directly bear on the War than she could have seen herself waited on by large and serviceable young men. Here was her grievance: it was no more a deprivation to be without her house-parties and her hunting, while the enemy streamed east and west out of Central Europe, than it was to be without her footmen and her motor-cars, all of which were better employed than in administering to her needs. ”

“ One is bound to set an example——"
"And put it in the papers," remarked Queenie.
Sybil remained quite grave.
"Naturally," she said. "What's the good of setting an example unless you let people know you've set it? Bob, I am sorry to say, disagreed with me. He said he objected to my advertising myself as having cut off all alcohol. I hate doing what Bob doesn't like, but I can't sacrifice principle for anybody."
One of the aged footmen tottered in with a fresh pile of clothing, and Sybil gave him the awful cardigan to burn. ”

“ Sybil laughed.
"I don't think you should have sorted them out, Queenie," she said. "Imagine that coat having been given to a man on the verge of a nervous breakdown, who had plenty of tobacco, but no pipe and no socks. ”

“ But it might have been given to one of iron constitution, who never smoked, and had more socks than he could possibly wear. It would then have been an ironical gift, not kind. By the way, I saw in the paper this morning that you had joined the Non-Alcoholic League. ”