They walked together back to Westminster and wished each other a short good-night upon what once had been their common doorstep. With her latchkey in her hand, she turned and watched his retreating figure, and suddenly a wave of longing seized her to run after him and call him back—to see his eyes light up and feel the pressure of his hands. It was only by clinging to the railings and counting till she was sure he had entered his own house round the corner and closed the door behind him, that she restrained herself. “Perhaps,” she added, “the helpmate theory was intended to apply only to our bodies. There was nothing said about our souls. Perhaps God doesn’t have to work in pairs. Perhaps we were meant to stand alone.”!

The contract was concluded in Mr. Krebs’ private office: a very stout gentleman with a very thin voice, whose dream had always been to one day be of service to the renowned Mr. Robert Phillips. He was clearly under the impression that he had now accomplished it. Even as Mrs. Phillips took up the pen to sign, the wild idea occurred to Joan of snatching the paper away from her, hustling her into a cab, and in some quiet street or square making the woman see for herself that she was a useless fool; that the glowing dreams and fancies she had cherished in her silly head for fifteen years must all be given up; that she must stand aside, knowing herself of no account. It was at Madge Singleton’s rooms that the details of Joan’s entry into journalistic London were arranged. “The Coming of Beauty,” was Flora Lessing’s phrase for designating the event. Flora Lessing, known among her associates as “Flossie,” was the girl who at Cambridge had accidentally stumbled upon the explanation of Joan’s influence. In appearance she was of the Fluffy Ruffles type, with childish innocent eyes, and the “unruly curls” beloved of the Family Herald novelist. At the first, these latter had been the result of a habit of late rising and consequent hurried toilet operations; but on the discovery that for the purposes of her profession they possessed a market value they had been sedulously cultivated. Editors of the old order had ridiculed the idea of her being of any use to them, when two years previously she had, by combination of cheek and patience, forced herself into their sanctum; had patted her paternally upon her generally ungloved hand, and told her to go back home and get some honest, worthy young man to love and cherish her.

“Ah,” he said, “you would understand if you had. When one of the horses goes down gored, his entrails lying out upon the sand, you know what they do, don’t you? They put a rope round him, and drag him, groaning, into the shambles behind. And once there, kind people like you and Monsieur le Médecin tend him and wash him, and put his entrails back, and sew him up again. He thinks it so kind of them—the first time. But the second! He understands. He will be sent back into the arena to be ripped up again, and again after that. This is the third time I have been wounded, and as soon as you’ve all patched me up and I’ve got my breath again, they’ll send me back into it. Mam’selle will forgive my not feeling grateful to her.” He gave a short laugh that brought the blood into his mouth. Flossie had joined every society she could hear of that was working for the League of Nations. Her hope was that it would get itself established before young Frank grew up. “I said that,” answered Joan. “I wanted to do it and I talked and talked, so hard. I said everything I could think of. But that was the only answer: I mustn’t do it.”