“You’ve got to face this unalterable law,” he continued. “That power derived from worldly sources can only be employed for worldly purposes. The power conferred by popularity, by wealth, by that ability to make use of other men that we term organization—sooner or later the man who wields that power becomes the Devil’s servant. So long as Kingship was merely a force struggling against anarchy, it was a holy weapon. As it grew in power so it degenerated into an instrument of tyranny. The Church, so long as it remained a scattered body of meek, lowly men, did the Lord’s work. Enthroned at Rome, it thundered its edicts against human thought. The Press is in danger of following precisely the same history. When it wrote in fear of the pillory and of the jail, it fought for Liberty. Now it has become the Fourth Estate, it fawns—as Jack Swinton said of it—at the feet of Mammon. My Proprietor, good fellow, allows me to cultivate my plot amid the wilderness for other purposes than those of quick returns. If he were to become a competitor with the Carletons and the Bloomfields, he would have to look upon it as a business proposition. The Devil would take him up on to the high mountain, and point out to him the kingdom of huge circulations and vast profits, whispering to him: ‘All this will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.’ I don’t want the dear good fellow to be tempted.” “I wonder if you’re right,” mused Mrs. Phillips. “He does often say that he’d just as soon I didn’t talk about them.”!

“Don’t you see it for yourself?” he demanded. “So you have come to love the dear old chap,” he said.

“Yes,” said Joan. “Not any great number of them, not yet. But enough to show that I really am interesting them. It grows every week.” “Abominably rude,” she answered, “you’ve defied my warnings, and treated my embassy with contempt.” She turned to him and their eyes met. “I should have despised you, if you hadn’t,” she added. Joan thanked him. As he held the door open for her their hands accidentally touched. Joan wished him good-night and went up the stairs. There was no light in her room: only the faint reflection of the street lamp outside.