“Well, you can’t expect ’em to like it, can you?” submitted Miss Ensor. “Oh, yes,” he answered. “But I tried the wrong way.” “The right way might be found,” he added, “by the right man, and woman.”!

Her anger betrayed itself in her tone; and he shot a swift glance at her. Joan looked at her watch. She had an article to finish. Madge stood on tiptoe and kissed her.

Mr. Simson fidgeted. The quiet of the room, broken only by Mary’s ministering activities, evidently oppressed him. He had lost interest in politics. They discussed life on two thousand a year; the problems it would present; and Mrs. Phillips became more cheerful. Joan laid herself out to be friendly. She hoped to establish an influence over Mrs. Phillips that should be for the poor lady’s good; and, as she felt instinctively, for poor Phillips’s also. It was not an unpleasing face. Underneath the paint, it was kind and womanly. Joan was sure he would like it better clean. A few months’ attention to diet would make a decent figure of her and improve her wind. Joan watched her spreading the butter a quarter of an inch thick upon her toast and restrained with difficulty the impulse to take it away from her. And her clothes! Joan had seen guys carried through the streets on the fifth of November that were less obtrusive.