Joan was about to reply when the maid’s announcement of “Mrs. Denton” postponed the discussion. “You mean,” she asked, “that they force themselves upon you, even if you make it plain—”!

“A soldier boy?” he asked. She made her “good-night” extra affectionate, hoping to disguise her impatience. She wanted to get up to her own room.

Oh, the things she was going to get fond of! The things that her poor, round foolish eyes gloated upon the moment that she saw them! Joan tried to enlist the shopman on her side, descending even to flirtation. Unfortunately he was a young man with a high sense of duty, convinced that his employer’s interests lay in his support of Mrs. Phillips. The sight of the furniture that, between them, they selected for the dining-room gave Joan a quite distinct internal pain. They ascended to the floor above, devoted to the exhibition of “Recherché drawing-room suites.” Mrs. Phillips’s eye instinctively fastened with passionate desire upon the most atrocious. Joan grew vehement. It was impossible. “Are you sure it is?” he answered. “It would be so unreasonable.” “Of course,” answered Joan, “when I’m better. I’m not very well just now. It’s the weather, I suppose.”