“A distinctly dangerous man,” Joan overheard a little old lady behind her comment to a friend. “If I didn’t hate him, I should like him.” “I have always loved him,” Joan answered. “It was he didn’t love me, for a time, as I thought. But I know now that he does.”!

“So long as he doesn’t think that I came down specially to see him, I don’t mind,” said Joan. Joan considered. “Yes,” she answered. “I should say he’s just the man to manage her.”

He asked her questions about herself. But she could see that he was tired; so she told him it was too important a matter to start upon so late. She would talk about herself to-morrow. It would be Sunday. She felt elated at the thought that he would see her for the first time amid surroundings where she would shine. Folk came forward to meet her with that charming air of protective deference that he had adopted towards her. He might have been some favoured minister of state kissing the hand of a youthful Queen. She glanced down the long studio, ending in its fine window overlooking the park. Some of the most distinguished men in Paris were there, and the immediate stir of admiration that her entrance had created was unmistakable. Even the women turned pleased glances at her; as if willing to recognize in her their representative. A sense of power came to her that made her feel kind to all the world. There was no need for her to be clever: to make any effort to attract. Her presence, her sympathy, her approval seemed to be all that was needed of her. She had the consciousness that by the mere exercise of her will she could sway the thoughts and actions of these men: that sovereignty had been given to her. It reflected itself in her slightly heightened colour, in the increased brilliance of her eyes, in the confident case of all her movements. It added a compelling softness to her voice. It was on her tongue to ask him, as so often she had meant to do of late, what had been the cause of her mother’s illness—if illness it was: what it was that had happened to change both their lives. But always something had stopped her—something ever present, ever watchful, that seemed to shape itself out of the air, bending towards her with its finger on its lips.