“I don’t mean that it’s all their fault,” she continued. “We do all we can to attract them—the way we dress. Who was it said that to every woman every man is a potential lover. We can’t get it out of our minds. It’s there even when we don’t know it. We will never succeed in civilizing Nature.” Mrs. Phillips stooped and kissed her. “Of course, dear,” she said. “Perhaps I shall, now that my mind is easier.”!

“His sufferings!” he interrupted. “Does suffering entitle a man to be regarded as divine? If so, so also am I a God. Look at me!” He stretched out his long, thin arms with their claw-like hands, thrusting forward his great savage head that the bony, wizened throat seemed hardly strong enough to bear. “Wealth, honour, happiness: I had them once. I had wife, children and a home. Now I creep an outcast, keeping to the shadows, and the children in the street throw stones at me. Thirty years I have starved that I might preach. They shut me in their prisons, they hound me into garrets. They jibe at me and mock me, but they cannot silence me. What of my life? Am I divine?” “I am going to bed now,” she said. “I wanted to see you from what Papa told me. May I kiss you?”

“I like the houses, too,” he said. “There’s a character about them. You don’t often find such fine drawing-rooms in London.” “I’ve never been able myself,” he continued, “to understand the Lord’s enthusiasm for David. I suppose it was the Psalms that did it.” The discussion was brief. “Then I’ll send your agent the contract to-morrow,” Joan overheard him say a minute later.