She took from among the litter a faded photograph and handed it to Joan. “Odd,” she said. “I’ve just turned it out.” “And if he can’t?” suggested Joan.!

If the gift were noble, so also it could not be ignoble to accept it. “It told me to do it,” answered the girl.

“I’ve only asked a few,” she explained, as she led Joan into the restful white-panelled sitting-room that looked out upon the gardens. Madge shared a set of chambers in Gray’s Inn with her brother who was an actor. “But I have chosen them with care.” It was hard not to. She wanted to tell him that he was all wrong—at least, so far as she was concerned. It. was not the conqueror she loved in him; it was the fighter. Not in the hour of triumph but in the hour of despair she would have yearned to put her arms about him. “Unpopularity, abuse, failure,” it was against the fear of such that she would have guarded him. Yes, she had dreamed of leadership, influence, command. But it was the leadership of the valiant few against the hosts of the oppressors that she claimed. Wealth, honours! Would she have given up a life of ease, shut herself off from society, if these had been her standards? “Mésalliance!” Had the male animal no instinct, telling it when it was loved with all a woman’s being, so that any other union would be her degradation. “Not sure I am yet,” he answered with a grin. “It depends upon how I get through this evening.” He glanced round the room. “Have I got to pass all this crowd, I wonder?” he added.