She laughed. But the next moment she was serious. She slipped her hand in his. “I want you to give me that Dream of yours; that you built for my mother, and that all went wrong. They call it Allway’s Folly; and it makes me so mad. I want to make it all come true. May I try?”!

“But I like cooking, you know, dearie,” grumbled Mary. “There’s no interest in warming things up.” “What are you making?” asked Joan.

The stone hall was still vibrating to the voices of the last departed guests. Joan was seated on a footstool before the fire in front of Mrs. Denton’s chair. “I always come prepared to these scrimmages,” she explained. “I’ve got some Hazeline in my bag. They haven’t kicked you, have they?” They returned home by train. Joan insisted on travelling third class, and selected a compartment containing a stout woman and two children. Arthur had to be at the works. An important contract had got behindhand and they were working overtime. She and her father dined alone. He made her fulfil her promise to talk about herself, and she told him all she thought would interest him. She passed lightly over her acquaintanceship with Phillips. He would regard it as highly undesirable, she told herself, and it would trouble him. He was reading her articles in the Sunday Post, as also her Letters from Clorinda: and of the two preferred the latter as being less subversive of law and order. Also he did not like seeing her photograph each week, displayed across two columns with her name beneath in one inch type. He supposed he was old-fashioned. She was getting rather tired of it herself.