He was reading every expression on her face. “She wouldn’t mind if she did,” explained Joan. “And you know what she’s like! How can one think what one’s saying with that silly, goggle-eyed face in front of one always.”!

Joan did not answer. There seemed no words that would come. “It sounds like Meredith,” suggested Joan. “I am not quite sure.”

“That’s like you women,” he answered with a smile. “You pretend to be superior; and then you copy us.” “It was only a little thing, of course, that,” she answered. “But I’ve been thinking it must be that that’s at the bottom of it all; and that is why God lets there be weak things—children and little animals and men and women in pain, that we feel sorry for, so that people like you and Robert and so many others are willing to give up all your lives to helping them. And that is what He wants.” She turned down the Embankment after leaving the house. She always found the river strong and restful. So it was not only bad women that needed to be afraid of themselves—even to the most high-class young woman, with letters after her name, and altruistic interests: even to her, also, the longing for the lover’s clasp. Flossie had been right. Mother Nature was not to be flouted of her children—not even of her new daughters; to them, likewise, the family trait.