She had been busy at her machine when Joan had entered; and a pile of delicate white work lay folded on a chair beside her. “I wish this wretched business of the paper hadn’t come just at this time,” said Joan: “just when your voice is most needed.!

“Oh, you know,” explained Flossie. “Like a volcano compressed into a steam engine.” “Oh, she! She’s all right,” agreed the girl. “Having the time of her life: someone to look after for twenty-four hours a day that can’t help themselves.”

“It’s the syndicates that have done it,” was a Mrs. Elliot’s opinion. She wrote “Society Notes” for a Labour weekly. “When one man owned a paper he wanted it to express his views. A company is only out for profit. Your modern newspaper is just a shop. It’s only purpose is to attract customers. Look at the Methodist Herald, owned by the same syndicate of Jews that runs the Racing News. They work it as far as possible with the same staff.” “Hullo!” she said. “Are you two concluding a bargain?” “I want your love,” she said to him one day. “It helps me. I used to think it was selfish of me to take it, knowing I could never return it—not that love. But I no longer feel that now. Your love seems to me a fountain from which I can drink without hurting you.”