One day Joan, lunching at the club, met Madge Singleton. “That’s not bringing me up well,” suggested Joan: “putting those ideas into my head.”!

She did effect an improvement in the poor lady’s dress. On Madge’s advice she took her to a voluble little woman in the Earl’s Court Road who was struck at once by Madame Phillips’s remarkable resemblance to the Baroness von Stein. Had not Joan noticed it? Whatever suited the Baroness von Stein—allowed by common consent to be one of the best-dressed women in London—was bound to show up Madame Phillips to equal advantage. By curious coincidence a costume for the Baroness had been put in hand only the day before. It was sent for and pinned upon the delighted Madame Phillips. Perfection! As the Baroness herself would always say: “My frock must be a framework for my personality. It must never obtrude.” The supremely well-dressed woman! One never notices what she has on: that is the test. It seemed it was what Mrs. Phillips had always felt herself. Joan could have kissed the voluble, emphatic little woman. “Hullo!” she said. “Are you two concluding a bargain?”

“I want to prove to myself,” she explained, “that I am capable of earning my own living. I am going down into the market-place. If I’m no good, if I can’t take care of even one poor woman, I’ll come back and ask you to keep me.” She was sitting on the arm of his chair, and laughing, she drew his head towards her and pressed it against her. “If I succeed, if I am strong enough to fight the world for myself and win, that will mean I am strong enough and clever enough to help others.” “We are but poor men,” he said. “What can we do? Of what use are such as we?” “I thought perhaps you hadn’t from your tone,” explained Madge.