Miss Greyson left them. She had to finish an article. They debated “Clorinda’s” views; and agreed that, as a practical housekeeper, she would welcome attention being given to the question of the nation’s food. The Evening Gazette would support Phillips in principle, while reserving to itself the right of criticism when it came to details. She must have walked mechanically. Looking up she found herself in her own street. And as she reached her doorway the tears came suddenly.!

“It was more than love,” he answered. “It was idolatry. God punished me for it. He was a hard God, my God.” She did not look back.

She released Joan’s hand abruptly. “Come and see me to-morrow morning at my office,” she said. “We will fix up something that shall be serviceable to us both.” 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. “You looked so young,” he answered. “I had always had the idea that it was up to the old people to put the world to rights—that all I had to do was to look after myself. It came to me suddenly while you were talking to me—I mean while I was reading you: that if you were worrying yourself about it, I’d got to come in, too—that it would be mean of me not to. It wasn’t like being preached to. It was somebody calling for help.”