“She wasn’t born to be the châtelaine of Downing Street,” Joan admitted. “But it’s not an official position.” “What do you mean by the whole hog?” requested Joan, assuming dignity.!

“Oh, yes, there’s no make-believe this time,” answered the girl. “A bad thing for her if he wasn’t.” A young officer was lying in a corner behind a screen. He leant forward and pushed it aside.

Joan bent down and kissed her. “Let’s try it,” she whispered. “You won’t mind Robert not wearing evening dress,” she said. “He never will if he can help it. I shall just slip on a semi-toilette myself.” It was Mrs. Munday, poor soul, who all unconsciously had planted the seeds of disbelief in Joan’s mind. Mrs. Munday’s God, from Joan’s point of view, was a most objectionable personage. He talked a lot—or rather Mrs. Munday talked for Him—about His love for little children. But it seemed He only loved them when they were good. Joan was under no delusions about herself. If those were His terms, well, then, so far as she could see, He wasn’t going to be of much use to her. Besides, if He hated naughty children, why did He make them naughty? At a moderate estimate quite half Joan’s wickedness, so it seemed to Joan, came to her unbidden. Take for example that self-examination before the cheval glass. The idea had come into her mind. It had never occurred to her that it was wicked. If, as Mrs. Munday explained, it was the Devil that had whispered it to her, then what did God mean by allowing the Devil to go about persuading little girls to do indecent things? God could do everything. Why didn’t He smash the Devil? It seemed to Joan a mean trick, look at it how you would. Fancy leaving a little girl to fight the Devil all by herself. And then get angry because the Devil won! Joan came to cordially dislike Mrs. Munday’s God.