“I wish you would always be yourself, as you are now,” she said, “and never pose.” She reached home in the evening. The Phillips’s old rooms had been twice let since Christmas, but were now again empty. The McKean with his silent ways and his everlasting pipe had gone to America to superintend the production of one of his plays. The house gave her the feeling of being haunted. She had her dinner brought up to her and prepared for a long evening’s work; but found herself unable to think—except on the one subject that she wanted to put off thinking about. To her relief the last post brought her a letter from Arthur. He had been called to Lisbon to look after a contract, and would be away for a fortnight. Her father was not as well as he had been.!

Flossie had joined every society she could hear of that was working for the League of Nations. Her hope was that it would get itself established before young Frank grew up. “Oh, you needn’t look so scared,” laughed the girl, “I haven’t come down to that.” Her voice had changed. It had a note of shrillness. In some indescribable way she had grown coarse. “I’m a kept woman,” she explained. “What else is any woman?”

It ended in Joan’s promising to introduce her to discreet theatrical friends who would tell her of cosmetics less injurious to the skin, and advise her generally in the ancient and proper art of “making up.” He rose slowly from a high-backed chair beside the fire. “She wasn’t born to be the châtelaine of Downing Street,” Joan admitted. “But it’s not an official position.”