“But the people who can get harmed,” argued Joan. “The men who will be dragged away from their work, from their business, used as ‘cannon fodder.’” Flossie interrupted. “How about being quite frank?” she suggested. “Suppose we do love one another. How about putting it that way?”!

“Oh, it worries him, of course, poor dear,” Mrs. Phillips answered. “You see, I’ve always been such a go-ahead, as a rule. But I think he’s getting more hopeful. As I tell him, I’ll be all right by the autumn. It was that spell of hot weather that knocked me over.” Suddenly she heard a light step in the passage, and the room door opened. A girl entered. She was wearing a large black hat and a black boa round her neck. Between them her face shone unnaturally white. She carried a small cloth bag. She started, on seeing Joan, and seemed about to retreat.

In the day-time, when Arthur and her father were at the works, she would move through the high, square, stiffly-furnished rooms, or about the great formal garden, with its ordered walks and level lawns. And as with knowledge we come to love some old, stern face our childish eyes had thought forbidding, and would not have it changed, there came to her with the years a growing fondness for the old, plain brick-built house. Generations of Allways had lived and died there: men and women somewhat narrow, unsympathetic, a little hard of understanding; but at least earnest, sincere, seeking to do their duty in their solid, unimaginative way. Perhaps there were other ways besides those of speech and pen. Perhaps one did better, keeping to one’s own people; the very qualities that separated us from them being intended for their need. What mattered the colours, so that one followed the flag? Somewhere, all roads would meet. “Oh, don’t you believe her,” she advised Mr. Halliday. “She loves you still. She’s only teasing you. This is Joan.” They met more often from that day, for Joan was frankly using her two columns in the Sunday Post to propagate his aims. Carleton, to her surprise, made no objection. Nor did he seek to learn the result of his ultimatum. It looked, they thought, as if he had assumed acceptance; and was willing for Phillips to choose his own occasion. Meanwhile replies to her articles reached Joan in weekly increasing numbers. There seemed to be a wind arising, blowing towards Protection. Farm labourers, especially, appeared to be enthusiastic for its coming. From their ill-spelt, smeared epistles, one gathered that, after years of doubt and hesitation, they had—however reluctantly—arrived at the conclusion that without it there could be no hope for them. Factory workers, miners, engineers—more fluent, less apologetic—wrote as strong supporters of Phillips’s scheme; but saw clearly how upon Protection its success depended. Shopmen, clerks—only occasionally ungrammatical—felt sure that Robert Phillips, the tried friend of the poor, would insist upon the boon of Protection being no longer held back from the people. Wives and mothers claimed it as their children’s birthright. Similar views got themselves at the same time, into the correspondence columns of Carleton’s other numerous papers. Evidently Democracy had been throbbing with a passion for Protection hitherto unknown, even to itself.