“Oh yes there is,” said Madge. “Love has lent him gilded armour. From his helmet waves her crest,” she quoted. “Most men look fine in that costume. Pity they can’t always wear it.” She was alone in a maze of narrow, silent streets that ended always in a high blank wall. It seemed impossible to get away from this blank wall. Whatever way she turned she was always coming back to it.!

“Yes,” he answered. “One lives by habit.” “What are your principles?” she asked him. “Have you got any?”

It was at Madge Singleton’s rooms that the details of Joan’s entry into journalistic London were arranged. “The Coming of Beauty,” was Flora Lessing’s phrase for designating the event. Flora Lessing, known among her associates as “Flossie,” was the girl who at Cambridge had accidentally stumbled upon the explanation of Joan’s influence. In appearance she was of the Fluffy Ruffles type, with childish innocent eyes, and the “unruly curls” beloved of the Family Herald novelist. At the first, these latter had been the result of a habit of late rising and consequent hurried toilet operations; but on the discovery that for the purposes of her profession they possessed a market value they had been sedulously cultivated. Editors of the old order had ridiculed the idea of her being of any use to them, when two years previously she had, by combination of cheek and patience, forced herself into their sanctum; had patted her paternally upon her generally ungloved hand, and told her to go back home and get some honest, worthy young man to love and cherish her. “No,” the child answered. “Mama had a headache this morning, and I slipped out. You’re not keeping your promise.” They sat on the stone step of the fountain, where they were sheltered from the wind; and she buttoned his long coat about him.