“What’s Carleton got to do with it?” demanded Joan with a note of indignation. “It doesn’t seem to answer,” grumbled Madge. “One is always told it is the artist—the brain worker, the very men who have these fine instincts, who are the most sexual.”!

“Yes,” she answered. “Will you be coming alone?” “Good Heavens! What a tragedy for the man,” commented Flossie.

She remembered, as she was taking her leave, what she had come for: which was to invite Joan to dinner on the following Friday. Their meetings became confined, as before, to the little house in North Street. But it really seemed as if the gods, appeased by their submission, had decided to be kind. Hilda was home for the holidays; and her piercing eyes took in the situation at a flash. She appeared to have returned with a new-born and exacting affection for her mother, that astonished almost as much as it delighted the poor lady. Feeling sudden desire for a walk or a bus ride, or to be taken to an entertainment, no one was of any use to Hilda but her mother. Daddy had his silly politics to think and talk about. He must worry them out alone; or with the assistance of Miss Allway. That was what she was there for. Mrs. Phillips, torn between her sense of duty and fear of losing this new happiness, would yield to the child’s coaxing. Often they would be left alone to discuss the nation’s needs uninterrupted. Conscientiously they would apply themselves to the task. Always to find that, sooner or later, they were looking at one another, in silence. “Shipping is my business,” he said. “I’m going to help sailor men. See that they have somewhere decent to go to, and don’t get robbed. And then there are the Lascars, poor devils. Nobody ever takes their part.”