“No,” she whispered. “Of course not. I don’t like your tie.” It seemed to depress him, that. She would get into correspondence with them, go among them, talk to them. The difficulty, at first, would be in getting them to write to her, to open their minds to her. These voiceless masses that never spoke, but were always being spoken for by self-appointed “leaders,” “representatives,” who immediately they had climbed into prominence took their place among the rulers, and then from press and platform shouted to them what they were to think and feel. It was as if the Drill-Sergeant were to claim to be the “leader,” the “representative” of his squad; or the sheep-dog to pose as the “delegate” of the sheep. Dealt with always as if they were mere herds, mere flocks, they had almost lost the power of individual utterance. One would have to teach them, encourage them.!

“And mind your p’s and q’s,” she added. “You’re in a difficult position. And not all the eyes watching you are friendly.” Behind her drawn-down lids, she offered up a little prayer that she might always be worthy of his homage. She didn’t know it would make no difference to him.

“That shows how far it has gone,” she told him, “that you don’t even know it. You pretend to be a philosopher. But you’re really a man.” Beyond giving up her visits to the house, she had made no attempt to avoid meeting Phillips; and at public functions and at mutual friends they sometimes found themselves near to one another. It surprised her that she could see him, talk to him, and even be alone with him without its troubling her. He seemed to belong to a part of her that lay dead and buried—something belonging to her that she had thrust away with her own hands: that she knew would never come back to her. “Yes,” answered Joan. “One goes in for it more out of vanity, I’m afraid, than for any real purpose that it serves.”