“But there’s truth in a good deal that she says,” he added. “War can bring out all that is best in a people; but also it brings out the worst. We shall have to take care that the ideals are not lost sight of.” She concluded by giving Joan a hug, accompanied by a sloppy but heartfelt kiss.!

“And you would have had all the trouble of cooking it,” answered the girl. “That only wants warming up.” “No, dearie,” Mary admitted. “But I expect it’s got its purpose. Or he wouldn’t have to do it.”

Mary Greyson called on her in the morning, while she was still at breakfast. She had come from seeing Francis off by an early train from Euston. He had sent Joan a ring. “It is you,” he said. He seemed a little dazed. But even that did not help her. It seemed in some mysterious way to be no longer her room, but the room of someone she had known and half forgotten: who would never come back. It gave her the same feeling she had experienced on returning to the house in London: that the place was haunted. The high cheval glass from her mother’s dressing-room had been brought there for her use. The picture of an absurdly small child—the child to whom this room had once belonged—standing before it naked, rose before her eyes. She had wanted to see herself. She had thought that only her clothes stood in the way. If we could but see ourselves, as in some magic mirror? All the garments usage and education has dressed us up in laid aside. What was she underneath her artificial niceties, her prim moralities, her laboriously acquired restraints, her unconscious pretences and hypocrisies? She changed her clothes for a loose robe, and putting out the light drew back the curtains. The moon peeped in over the top of the tall pines, but it only stared at her, indifferent. It seemed to be looking for somebody else.