“There was an old Egyptian chap,” he said, “a governor of one of their provinces, thousands of years before the Pharaohs were ever heard of. They dug up his tomb a little while ago. It bore this inscription: ‘In my time no man went hungry.’ I’d rather have that carved upon my gravestone than the boastings of all the robbers and the butchers of history. Think what it must have meant in that land of drought and famine: only a narrow strip of river bank where a grain of corn would grow; and that only when old Nile was kind. If not, your nearest supplies five hundred miles away across the desert, your only means of transport the slow-moving camel. Your convoy must be guarded against attack, provided with provisions and water for a two months’ journey. Yet he never failed his people. Fat year and lean year: ‘In my time no man went hungry.’ And here, to-day, with our steamships and our railways, with the granaries of the world filled to overflowing, one third of our population lives on the border line of want. In India they die by the roadside. What’s the good of it all: your science and your art and your religion! How can you help men’s souls if their bodies are starving? A hungry man’s a hungry beast. Joan sat next to him at the round dinner-table with the child the other side of him. She noticed that he ate as far as possible with his right hand—his hands were large, but smooth and well shaped—his left remaining under the cloth, beneath which the child’s right hand, when free, would likewise disappear. For a while the conversation consisted chiefly of anecdotes by Mr. Airlie. There were few public men and women about whom he did not know something to their disadvantage. Joan, listening, found herself repeating the experience of a night or two previous, when, during a performance of Hamlet, Niel Singleton, who was playing the grave-digger, had taken her behind the scenes. Hamlet, the King of Denmark and the Ghost were sharing a bottle of champagne in the Ghost’s dressing-room: it happened to be the Ghost’s birthday. On her return to the front of the house, her interest in the play was gone. It was absurd that it should be so; but the fact remained.!

“Poor old girl!” he added. “I believe she’d have been happier if I’d always remained plain Bob Phillips.” She could help him. Without her, he would fail. The woman herself saw that, and wished it. Why should she hesitate? It was not as if she had only herself to consider. The fate—the happiness of millions was at stake. He looked to her for aid—for guidance. It must have been intended. All roads had led to it. Her going to the house. She remembered now, it was the first door at which she had knocked. Her footsteps had surely been directed. Her meeting with Mrs. Phillips in Madge’s rooms; and that invitation to dinner, coinciding with that crisis in his life. It was she who had persuaded him to accept. But for her he would have doubted, wavered, let his opportunities slip by. He had confessed it to her.

“It isn’t as terrible as you think,” she said. “Many men who have risen and taken a high place in the world were married to kind, good women unable to share their greatness. There was Shakespeare, you know, who married Anne Hathaway and had a clever daughter. She was just a nice, homely body a few years older than himself. And he seems to have been very fond of her; and was always running down to Stratford to be with her.” One evening, on her way home from a theatre, she met Flossie. “Can’t stop now,” said Flossie, who was hurrying. “But I want to see you: most particular. Was going to look you up. Will you be at home to-morrow afternoon at tea-time?” “You don’t mean a party?” asked Joan.