He knocked the ashes from his pipe and relit it. “No, it isn’t,” she contradicted. “It’s simple and big and kind. I always used to feel it disapproved of me. I believe it has come to love me, in its solemn old brick way.”!

“Come up to my rooms, will you?” he asked. “There’s something I want to say to you. And then I’ll walk back with you.” She was staying at a small hotel off Jermyn Street. She would accept it. The wonder of it should cast out her doubts and fears. She would seek to make herself worthy of it. Consecrate it with her steadfastness, her devotion.

Joan wondered if she could be the wife of the Member of Parliament who occupied the rooms below her in Cowley Street. His name, so the landlady had told her, was Phillips. She put the suggestion in a whisper to Flossie. Her admiration of the independent woman had undergone some modification since she had come in contact with her. Woman was intended to be dependent upon man. It was the part appointed to him in the social scheme. Woman had hers, no less important. Earning her own living did not improve her. It was one of the drawbacks of civilization that so many had to do it of necessity. It developed her on the wrong lines—against her nature. This cry of the unsexed: that woman must always be the paid servant instead of the helper of man—paid for being mother, paid for being wife! Why not carry it to its logical conclusion, and insist that she should be paid for her embraces? That she should share in man’s labour, in his hopes, that was the true comradeship. What mattered it, who held the purse-strings! She walked up the Rue des Sts. Pères, enjoying the delicious air. Half way across the bridge she overtook a man, strolling listlessly in front of her. There was something familiar about him. He was wearing a grey suit and had his hands in his pockets. Suddenly the truth flashed upon her. She stopped. If he strolled on, she would be able to slip back. Instead of which he abruptly turned to look down at a passing steamer, and they were face to face.