Joan had taken a liking to the girl. It was a spiritual, vivacious face with frank eyes and a firm mouth; and the voice was low and strong. “Yes, I was glad to see you,” answered the girl. “It’s hateful, dining by oneself. Are you living alone?”!

“Tell me,” she said. “If it had been the photo of a woman with a bony throat and a beaky nose would you have read them?” It was one of the half-dozen old hotels still left in Paris, and was built round a garden famous for its mighty mulberry tree. She breakfasted underneath it, and was reading there when Folk appeared before her, smiling and with his hat in his hand. He excused himself for intruding upon her so soon, thinking from what she had written him that her first morning might be his only chance. He evidently considered her remembrance of him a feather in his cap.

A little laugh escaped her. “I couldn’t face it,” he went on; “the way people would be looking at me in trains and omnibuses; the things people would say of me, the things I should imagine they were saying; what my valet would be thinking of me. Oh, I’m ashamed enough of myself. It’s the artistic temperament, I suppose. We must always be admired, praised. We’re not the stuff that martyrs are made of. We must for ever be kow-towing to the cackling geese around us. We’re so terrified lest they should hiss us.” He threw aside the letter. “I’ll tell you what I want you to do,” he said. “It’s nothing to object to. Tell him that you’ve seen me and had a talk. I understand his scheme to be that the country should grow more and more food until it eventually becomes self-supporting; and that the Government should control the distribution. Tell him that with that I’m heart and soul in sympathy; and would like to help him.” He pushed aside a pile of papers and, leaning across the desk, spoke with studied deliberation. “If he can see his way to making his policy dependent upon Protection, we can work together.”