“Take off your glasses, and look at it straight,” she went on, without giving Joan time to reply. “What is it in us that ‘inspires’ men? If it’s only advice and sympathy he’s after, what’s wrong with dear old Mrs. Denton? She’s a good walker, except now and then, when she’s got the lumbago. Why doesn’t he get her to ‘inspire’ him?” Joan sat next to him at the round dinner-table with the child the other side of him. She noticed that he ate as far as possible with his right hand—his hands were large, but smooth and well shaped—his left remaining under the cloth, beneath which the child’s right hand, when free, would likewise disappear. For a while the conversation consisted chiefly of anecdotes by Mr. Airlie. There were few public men and women about whom he did not know something to their disadvantage. Joan, listening, found herself repeating the experience of a night or two previous, when, during a performance of Hamlet, Niel Singleton, who was playing the grave-digger, had taken her behind the scenes. Hamlet, the King of Denmark and the Ghost were sharing a bottle of champagne in the Ghost’s dressing-room: it happened to be the Ghost’s birthday. On her return to the front of the house, her interest in the play was gone. It was absurd that it should be so; but the fact remained.!

Joan was worried. “I told Dad I should only ask him for enough to make up two hundred a year,” she explained. “He’ll laugh at me for not knowing my own mind.” The old lady had tired herself. Joan undertook the mission. She thought she would rather enjoy it, and Mrs. Denton promised to let her have full instructions. She would write to her friends in Paris and prepare them for Joan’s coming.

“One of these days somebody will start a Society for the Reformation of the Press,” thought Flossie. “I wonder how the papers will take it?” He was reading every expression on her face. “Your information is quite correct,” she answered.