“I may not see you again before I go,” he said. “Look after Mary. I shall try to persuade her to go down to her aunt in Hampshire. It’s rather a bit of luck, as it turns out, the paper being finished with. I shouldn’t have quite known what to do.” “Why did the apple fall?” answered Flossie. “Why, when it escapes from its bonds, doesn’t it soar upward? If it wasn’t for the irritating law of gravity, we could skip about on the brink of precipices without danger. Things being what they are, sensible people keep as far away from the edge as possible.”!

She had gone down to Liverpool, intending to persuade her father to leave the control of the works to Arthur, and to come and live with her in London; but had left without broaching the subject. There were nights when she would trapse the streets till she would almost fall exhausted, rather than face the solitude awaiting her in her own rooms. But so also there were moods when, like some stricken animal, her instinct was to shun all living things. At such times his presence, for all his loving patience, would have been as a knife in her wound. Besides, he would always be there, when escape from herself for a while became an absolute necessity. More and more she had come to regard him as her comforter. Not from anything he ever said or did. Rather, it seemed to her, because that with him she felt no need of words. “I like him,” said Joan.

The girl shrugged her shoulders. “Who was there for me to marry?” she answered. “The men who wanted me: clerks, young tradesmen, down at home—I wasn’t taking any of that lot. And the men I might have fancied were all of them too poor. There was one student. He’s got on since. Easy enough for him to talk about waiting. Meanwhile. Well, it’s like somebody suggesting dinner to you the day after to-morrow. All right enough, if you’re not troubled with an appetite.” He rose and held out his hand. “We will fight him,” he said. “And you can tell him this, if he asks, that I’m going straight for him. Parliament may as well close down if a few men between them are to be allowed to own the entire Press of the country, and stifle every voice that does not shout their bidding. We haven’t dethroned kings to put up a newspaper Boss. He shall have all the fighting he wants.” “For God’s sake don’t take even that away from me,” he said. “Unless you want me to go to pieces altogether. A crust does just keep one alive. One can’t help thinking what a fine, strong chap one might be if one wasn’t always hungry.”