“Who told you I persuaded him?” she asked. She did not want to talk about the war.!

Joan recounted the episode—so far as the doorstep. “We ought to be comrades,” answered Joan, with a smile. “I, too, am trying to help the People.”

A lank, black-haired girl, with a pair of burning eyes looking out of a face that, but for the thin line of the lips, would have been absolutely colourless, rose suddenly from behind a bowl of artificial flowers. Joan could not suppress a slight start; she had not noticed her on entering. The girl came slowly forward, and Joan felt as if the uncanny eyes were eating her up. She made an effort and held out her hand with a smile, and the girl’s long thin fingers closed on it in a pressure that hurt. She did not speak. “Yes, that was all right,” she answered. “He fashioned Eve for Adam and saw that Adam got her. The ideal marriage might have been the ideal solution. If the Lord had intended that, he should have kept the match-making in His own hands: not have left it to man. Somewhere in Athens there must have been the helpmeet God had made for Socrates. When they met, it was Xanthippe that she kissed.” “What are you going to do when it’s over?” he asked her. “You won’t give up the fight, will you, whatever happens?” She had not known till then that he had been taking any interest in her work.