It did not suggest any overwhelming impatience. “Yes,” she answered. “In case you haven’t married yourself, and forgotten all about me.” They had paused where a group of trees threw a blot of shadow across the moonlit road.!

He met Joan, radiant, a morning or two later. The English Government had resigned and preparations for a general election were already on foot. There was something about the poor, foolish painted face, as it looked up pleadingly, that gave it a momentary touch of beauty.

He gave her a commission then and there for a heart to heart talk with a gentleman whom the editor of the Home News Department of the Daily Dispatch would have referred to as a “Leading Literary Luminary,” and who had just invented a new world in two volumes. She had asked him childish questions and had listened with wide-open eyes while he, sitting over against her, and smiling benevolently, had laid bare to her all the seeming intricacies of creation, and had explained to her in simple language the necessary alterations and improvements he was hoping to bring about in human nature. He had the sensation that his hair must be standing on end the next morning after having read in cold print what he had said. Expanding oneself before the admiring gaze of innocent simplicity and addressing the easily amused ear of an unsympathetic public are not the same thing. He ought to have thought of that. “Why did you give it up?” asked Joan. “Don’t you see it for yourself?” he demanded.