Joan was still looking out of the window. She didn’t quite know what to say. The woman’s altered appearance had shocked her. Suddenly she felt a touch upon her hand. A young officer was lying in a corner behind a screen. He leant forward and pushed it aside.!

“Why do you say ‘dish’ of tea!” asked Mrs. Phillips, as she lowered herself with evident satisfaction into the easy chair Joan placed for her. His letter in answer was much shorter. Of course he would obey her wishes. He had been selfish, thinking only of himself. As for his political career, he did not see how that was going to suffer by his being occasionally seen in company with one of the most brilliantly intellectual women in London, known to share his views. And he didn’t care if it did. But inasmuch as she valued it, all things should be sacrificed to it. It was hers to do what she would with. It was the only thing he had to offer her.

She looked up Phillips at the House, and gave him Greyson’s message. He had just returned from Folkestone, and was worried. “You young imp of Satan!” demanded Mrs. Munday—her feelings of outraged virtue exaggerating perhaps her real sentiments. “What are you doing?” “I don’t suppose it does: not directly,” answered Mrs. Denton. “But it helps them to establish their position and get a tighter hold upon the public. War does pay the newspaper in the long run. The daily newspaper lives on commotion, crime, lawlessness in general. If people no longer enjoyed reading about violence and bloodshed half their occupation, and that the most profitable half would be gone. It is the interest of the newspaper to keep alive the savage in human nature; and war affords the readiest means of doing this. You can’t do much to increase the number of gruesome murders and loathsome assaults, beyond giving all possible advertisement to them when they do occur. But you can preach war, and cover yourself with glory, as a patriot, at the same time.”