“No,” she answered with a laugh, “no matter what happens, I shall always want to be in it.” Mrs. Phillips was in bed when Joan went up to say good-bye. “You’ll come again soon?” she asked, and Joan promised. “You’ve made me so happy,” she whispered. The nurse was in the room.!

“How can you?” she said. “I mean, how will you?” The summer was propitious. Phillips knew his London well, and how to get away from it. There were winding lanes in Hertfordshire, Surrey hills and commons, deep, cool, bird-haunted woods in Buckingham. Each week there was something to look forward to, something to plan for and manoeuvre. The sense of adventure, a spice of danger, added zest. She still knocked frequently, as before, at the door of the hideously-furnished little house in North Street; but Mrs. Phillips no longer oppressed her as some old man of the sea she could never hope to shake off from her shoulders. The flabby, foolish face, robbed of its terrors, became merely pitiful. She found herself able to be quite gentle and patient with Mrs. Phillips. Even the sloppy kisses she came to bear without a shudder down her spine.

“Through the medium of Carleton and his like; and just so far as they allow his influence to permeate beyond the platform,” answered Greyson. Joan made a swift effort to hide her surprise. She had never heard of her mother having been upon the stage. Mrs. Phillips was running a Convalescent Home in Folkestone, he told her; and had even made a speech. Hilda was doing relief work among the ruined villages of France.