“But you’re surely not suggesting any other kind of Press, at this period of the world’s history?” exclaimed Joan. “It comes to the same thing, doesn’t it, dear?” she answered. “They are there, anyhow. And that is how He knows those who are willing to serve Him: by their being pitiful.”!

She made her “good-night” extra affectionate, hoping to disguise her impatience. She wanted to get up to her own room. “I wonder if you’re right,” mused Mrs. Phillips. “He does often say that he’d just as soon I didn’t talk about them.”

She would not let him light the gas. “I have dined—in the train,” she explained. “Let us talk by the firelight.” “Well, what does Beauty think about it?” this one had asked, laughing. She had arrived at the end of a discussion just as Joan was leaving the room. And then she gave a long low whistle, feeling that she had stumbled upon the explanation. Beauty, that mysterious force that from the date of creation has ruled the world, what does It think? Dumb, passive, as a rule, exercising its influence unconsciously. But if it should become intelligent, active! A Philosopher has dreamed of the vast influence that could be exercised by a dozen sincere men acting in unity. Suppose a dozen of the most beautiful women in the world could form themselves into a league! Joan found them late in the evening still discussing it. “You grow wonderfully like your mother,” he told her that evening at dinner. “There used to be something missing. But I don’t feel that, now.”