“I’m afraid you haven’t yet grasped the power of the Press,” he answered with a smile. “Phillips speaks occasionally to five thousand people. Carleton addresses every day a circle of five million readers.” Even Mrs. Grundy herself couldn’t object to a journalist dining with a politician!!

“No,” answered the other, “I was at Hastings—Miss Gwyn’s. Funny how we seem to have always been near to one another. Dad wanted me to be a doctor. But I’d always been mad about art.” Firstly there was the great event of going to school. She was glad to get away from home, a massive, stiffly furnished house in a wealthy suburb of Liverpool. Her mother, since she could remember, had been an invalid, rarely leaving her bedroom till the afternoon. Her father, the owner of large engineering works, she only saw, as a rule, at dinner-time, when she would come down to dessert. It had been different when she was very young, before her mother had been taken ill. Then she had been more with them both. She had dim recollections of her father playing with her, pretending to be a bear and growling at her from behind the sofa. And then he would seize and hug her and they would both laugh, while he tossed her into the air and caught her. He had looked so big and handsome. All through her childhood there had been the desire to recreate those days, to spring into the air and catch her arms about his neck. She could have loved him dearly if he had only let her. Once, seeking explanation, she had opened her heart a little to Mrs. Munday. It was disappointment, Mrs. Munday thought, that she had not been a boy; and with that Joan had to content herself. Maybe also her mother’s illness had helped to sadden him. Or perhaps it was mere temperament, as she argued to herself later, for which they were both responsible. Those little tricks of coaxing, of tenderness, of wilfulness, by means of which other girls wriggled their way so successfully into a warm nest of cosy affection: she had never been able to employ them. Beneath her self-confidence was a shyness, an immovable reserve that had always prevented her from expressing her emotions. She had inherited it, doubtless enough, from him. Perhaps one day, between them, they would break down the barrier, the strength of which seemed to lie in its very flimsiness, its impalpability.

“A distinctly dangerous man,” Joan overheard a little old lady behind her comment to a friend. “If I didn’t hate him, I should like him.” She waited till they had reached a quiet road leading to the hills. They had tea at an old-fashioned inn beside a stream. It was a favourite resort in summer time, but now they had it to themselves. The wind had played pranks with her hair and he found a mirror and knelt before her, holding it.