They watched the loading of a steamer while Joan drank her tea. “You and your class,” said Mr. Simson, “are friends enough to the People, so long as they remember that they are the People, and keep their proper place—at the bottom. I am for putting the People at the top.”!

“But he won’t be able to do his work if you keep away and never come back to him,” she persisted. “Oh, I know it. It all depends upon you. He wants you.” “Oh, it isn’t that,” he answered. “But she’s frightened. You know. Says life with me is going to be a bit too uncertain for her. Perhaps she’s right.”

“What does he think,” she asked, “about your illness?” Neither spoke for a while. Later on, they talked about the coming election. If the Party got back, Phillips would go to the Board of Trade. It would afford him a better platform for the introduction of his land scheme. Could we ever hope to eradicate it? Was not the survival of this fighting instinct proof that war was still needful to us? In the sculpture-room of an exhibition she came upon a painted statue of Bellona. Its grotesqueness shocked her at first sight, the red streaming hair, the wild eyes filled with fury, the wide open mouth—one could almost hear it screaming—the white uplifted arms with outstretched hands! Appalling! Terrible! And yet, as she gazed at it, gradually the thing grew curiously real to her. She seemed to hear the gathering of the chariots, the neighing of the horses, the hurrying of many feet, the sound of an armouring multitude, the shouting, and the braying of the trumpets.