One day Phillips burst into a curious laugh. They had been discussing the problem of the smallholder. Joan had put a question to him, and with a slight start he had asked her to repeat it. But it seemed she had forgotten it. “If the world were properly stage-managed, that’s what you ought to be,” he said, “the wife of a Prime Minister. I can see you giving such an excellent performance.”!

“There are more important things than saving men’s bodies. You think that, don’t you?” he asked. “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.”

“I thought perhaps you hadn’t from your tone,” explained Madge. “Some men,” he answered. “Artists and poets. They have the woman within them. Men like myself—the mere fighter: we are incomplete in ourselves. Male and female created He them. We are lost without our mate.” There, the little pew-opener had left her, having to show the early-comers to their seats; and Joan had found an out-of-the-way pew from where she could command a view of the whole church. They were chiefly poor folk, the congregation; with here and there a sprinkling of faded gentility. They seemed in keeping with the place. The twilight faded and a snuffy old man shuffled round and lit the gas.