In her white night dress, with her hair in two long plaits, she looked at herself once more. She seemed to be no one of any importance at all: just a long little girl going to bed. With no one to kiss her good night. And suddenly—as years before in a Paris music hall—there leapt to life within Joan’s brain a little impish creature that took possession of her. She hoped the miracle would not happen. The little impish creature within her brain was marching up and down beating a drum. She wished he would stop a minute. Someone was trying to talk to her, telling her she ought to be tremendously shocked and grieved. He—or she, or whatever it was that was trying to talk to her, appeared concerned about Reason and Pity and Universal Brotherhood and Civilization’s clock—things like that. But the little impish drummer was making such a din, she couldn’t properly hear. Later on, perhaps, he would get tired; and then she would be able to listen to this humane and sensible person, whoever it might be.!

And as she did so, it seemed to her that someone passing breathed upon her lips a little kiss: and for a while she did not move. Then, treading softly, she looked into the room. Mr. Simson shook his head. “Somebody’s got to tackle them,” he said. “Tell them the truth about themselves, to their faces.”

He ceased speaking. No one seemed inclined to break the silence. He raised his eyes to hers. The shadow that, to her fancy, had always rested there seemed to have departed. A light had come to them. CHAPTER XV