“I wasn’t really,” explained Mr. Folk. “I just walked and talked naturally. It made rather a sensation at the time. Your mother was a genius. You have never thought of going on the stage yourself?” Young Allway arrived just as Joan and her father had sat down to supper. A place had been laid for him. He flushed with pleasure at seeing her; but was not surprised.!

“The old story,” sighed Mr. Simson. “One of the customers happened to be passing last Wednesday when I was speaking on the Embankment. Heard my opinion of the middle classes?” “The old pulpit became an evil, the moment it obtained unlimited power,” answered Mrs. Denton. “It originated persecution and inflamed men’s passions against one another. It, too, preached war for its own ends, taught superstition, and punished thought as a crime. The Press of to-day is stepping into the shoes of the medieval priest. It aims at establishing the worst kind of tyranny: the tyranny over men’s minds. They pretend to fight among themselves, but it’s rapidly becoming a close corporation. The Institute of Journalists will soon be followed by the union of Newspaper Proprietors and the few independent journals will be squeezed out. Already we have German shareholders on English papers; and English capital is interested in the St. Petersburg Press. It will one day have its International Pope and its school of cosmopolitan cardinals.”

“You mean,” she asked, “that they force themselves upon you, even if you make it plain—” Suddenly she heard a light step in the passage, and the room door opened. A girl entered. She was wearing a large black hat and a black boa round her neck. Between them her face shone unnaturally white. She carried a small cloth bag. She started, on seeing Joan, and seemed about to retreat. “There’ll be nothing more,” explained Joan. “So long as my friendship is of any assistance to Robert Phillips in his work, he’s going to have it. What use are we going to be in politics—what’s all the fuss about, if men and women mustn’t work together for their common aims and help one another?”