“It’s war,” he said. “Why did we all like him?” asked Joan. “Even Miss Lavery. There’s nothing extraordinary about him.”!

The young man looked at him and smiled. “I met her pretty often during those months that Helen Lavery was running her round,” she said at length. “It always seemed to me to have a touch of the heroic, that absurd effort she was making to ‘qualify’ herself, so that she might be of use to him. I can see her doing something quite big, if she thought it would help him.”

She would stand behind Phillips’s chair with her fat arms round his neck, nodding her approval and encouragement; while Joan, seated opposite, would strain every nerve to keep her brain fixed upon the argument, never daring to look at poor Phillips’s wretched face, with its pleading, apologetic eyes, lest she should burst into hysterical laughter. She hoped she was being helpful and inspiring! Mrs. Phillips would assure her afterwards that she had been wonderful. As for herself, there were periods when she hadn’t the faintest idea about what she was talking. “You mean my friendship is going to be of no use to you?” asked Joan. There had been whispered talk among the men, and when she rose the one who had first spoken to her came forward. He was nervous and stood stiffly.