Joan looked at her watch. She had an article to finish. Madge stood on tiptoe and kissed her. The second was a clumsy-looking, overdressed woman whom Miss Lavery introduced as “Mrs. Phillips, a very dear friend of mine, who is going to be helpful to us all,” adding in a hurried aside to Madge, “I simply had to bring her. Will explain to you another time.” An apology certainly seemed to be needed. The woman was absurdly out of her place. She stood there panting and slightly perspiring. She was short and fat, with dyed hair. As a girl she had possibly been pretty in a dimpled, giggling sort of way. Joan judged her, in spite of her complexion, to be about forty.!

They had resumed their stroll. It seemed to her that he looked at her once or twice a little oddly without speaking. “What caused your mother’s illness?” he asked, abruptly. “No, it wasn’t,” answered the child. “Most of them were against it. And then there was Mama,” she added in a lower tone.

“Oh, she’s going to break it off unless we all assure her that we find him brainy,” Madge explained with a laugh. “It seems her father wasn’t brainy and her mother was. Or else it was the other way about: I’m not quite sure. But whichever it was, it led to ructions. Myself, if he’s at all possible and seems to care for her, I intend to find him brilliant.” He met Joan, radiant, a morning or two later. The English Government had resigned and preparations for a general election were already on foot. “There’s a chemist’s shop in the next street. We’d better take him there,” suggested the one who had first spoken to her. And she thanked them and followed them.