“He has asked me,” answered the girl with a swagger. “Not sure that it would suit me now. They’re not so nice to you when they’ve got you fixed up. So long.” After a while, her eyes opened. Joan drew her chair nearer and slipped her arm in under her, and their eyes met.!

It was spoken so gravely that Joan did not ask her, as in lighter mood she might have done, what it was that Phillips had said. She raised her face quietly, and the child bent forward and kissed her, and went out without looking back at either of them, leaving Joan more serious than there seemed any reason for. Phillips filled his pipe and lighted it. “So am I,” he said. “Tell your children what you have seen. Tell other women.”

She lingered in the street by herself, a little time, after he had turned the corner. It had been a house of sorrow and disappointment to her; but so also she had dreamed her dreams there, seen her visions. She had never made much headway with her landlord and her landlady: a worthy couple, who had proved most excellent servants, but who prided themselves, to use their own expression, on knowing their place and keeping themselves to themselves. Joan had given them notice that morning, and had been surprised at the woman’s bursting into tears. “No,” maintained Joan stoutly. “I hate clothes.” As a matter of fact she didn’t, even in those early days. On the contrary, one of her favourite amusements was “dressing up.” This sudden overmastering desire to arrive at the truth about herself had been a new conceit. “Only through the bars, in future,” she promised. “With the gaoler between us.” She put her arms round Flossie and bent her head, so that her face was hidden.