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. “I’ll grant you all that, sir,” answered the young soldier who had first spoken. He had long, delicate hands and eager, restless eyes. “War does bring out heroism. So does pestilence and famine. Read Defoe’s account of the Plague of London. How men and women left their safe homes, to serve in the pest-houses, knowing that sooner or later they were doomed. Read of the mothers in India who die of slow starvation, never allowing a morsel of food to pass their lips so that they may save up their own small daily portion to add it to their children’s. Why don’t we pray to God not to withhold from us His precious medicine of pestilence and famine? So is shipwreck a fine school for courage. Look at the chance it gives the captain to set a fine example. And the engineers who stick to their post with the water pouring in upon them. We don’t reconcile ourselves to shipwrecks as a necessary school for sailors. We do our best to lessen them. So did persecution bring out heroism. It made saints and martyrs. Why have we done away with it? If this game of killing and being killed is the fine school for virtue it is made out to be, then all our efforts towards law and order have been a mistake. We never ought to have emerged from the jungle.”!

Joan slipped her hand through the other’s arm. Folk had fixed up a party at his studio to meet her. She had been there once or twice; but this was a final affair. She had finished her business in Paris and would be leaving the next morning. To her surprise, she found Phillips there. He had come over hurriedly to attend a Socialist conference, and Leblanc, the editor of Le Nouveau Monde, had brought him along.

“She only came back yesterday for the half-term,” explained Mrs. Phillips. “There’s no keeping her away from her books. ’Twas her own wish to be sent to boarding-school. How would you like to go to Girton and be a B.A. like Miss Allway?” she asked, turning to the child. “You know things when you love anybody,” explained the child. “You feel them. You will come again, soon?” Joan grew angry. “If you choose to suspect evil, of course you can,” she answered with hauteur. “But you might have known me better. I admire the man and sympathize with him. All the things I dream of are the things he is working for. I can do more good by helping and inspiring him”—she wished she had not let slip that word “inspire.” She knew that Flossie would fasten upon it—“than I can ever accomplish by myself. And I mean to do it.” She really did feel defiant, now.