A servant brought the coffee and went out again. Her father lighted a cigar and handed her the cigarettes. Poor Robert! It would be hard on him, too. She could not help feeling consolation in the thought that he also would be wearing that invisible crown.!

He was thinking only of himself. Had he no pity for her. So was she, also, useless without her mate. Neither was she of those, here and there, who can stand alone. Her task was that of the eternal woman: to make a home: to cleanse the world of sin and sorrow, make it a kinder dwelling-place for the children that should come. This man was her true helpmeet. He would have been her weapon, her dear servant; and she could have rewarded him as none other ever could. The lamplight fell upon his ruddy face, his strong white hands resting on the flimsy table. He belonged to an older order than her own. That suggestion about him of something primitive, of something not yet altogether tamed. She felt again that slight thrill of fear that so strangely excited her. A mist seemed to be obscuring all things. He seemed to be coming towards her. Only by keeping her eyes fixed on his moveless hands, still resting on the table, could she convince herself that his arms were not closing about her, that she was not being drawn nearer and nearer to him, powerless to resist. “But do not all our Isms work towards that end?” suggested Madge.

“I don’t know what I should do without you, I really don’t,” confessed the grateful lady. “If ever I become a Prime Minister’s wife, it’s you I shall have to thank. You’ve got so much courage yourself, you can put the heart into him. I never had any pluck to spare myself.” She whispered them at last. Not bravely, at all. Feebly, haltingly, with a little sob: her forehead pressed against the cold iron seat, as if that could help her. “I am getting thin, ain’t I?” she said. “I always wanted to be thin.” They both laughed.