“I wish I had your pen,” he said, suddenly breaking the silence. “I’m all right at talking; but I want to get at the others: the men and women who never come, thinking it has nothing to do with them. I’m shy and awkward when I try to write. There seems a barrier in front of me. You break through it. One hears your voice. Tell me,” he said, “are you getting your way? Do they answer you?” “They are right to a great extent,” she said to Joan. “But not all the temple has been given over to the hucksters. You shall place your preaching stool in some quiet corner, where the passing feet shall pause awhile to listen.”!

These small hypocrisies were new to her. She hoped she was not damaging her character. But it was good, watching him slyly from under drawn-down lids, to see the flash of triumph that would come into his tired eyes in answer to her half-protesting: “Yes, I see your point, I hadn’t thought of that,” her half reluctant admission that “perhaps” he was right, there; that “perhaps” she was wrong. It was delightful to see him young again, eager, boyishly pleased with himself. It seemed there was a joy she had not dreamed of in yielding victory as well as in gaining it. A new tenderness was growing up in her. How considerate, how patient, how self-forgetful he had always been. She wanted to mother him. To take him in her arms and croon over him, hushing away remembrance of the old sad days. Their arms were about one another. Joan felt that a new need had been born in her: the need of loving and of being loved. It was good to lay her head upon his breast and know that he was glad of her coming.

“Is it settled yet?” asked Joan. “Are they going to make room for him in the Cabinet? “What does Madge think of him?” asked Joan. He laughed. “And this new journal of his?” he asked. “It’s got to be published in London, hasn’t it?”