our wits, strengthened our brains.  Primitive man, content with his
necessities, would never have produced genius.  Art, literature, science
would have been stillborn.

He hesitated before replying, glancing at her furtively while crumbling
his bread.  When he did, it was in the tone that one of her younger
disciples might have ventured into a discussion with Hypatia.  But he
stuck to his guns.

How did she account for David and Solomon, Moses and the Prophets?  They
had sprung from a shepherd race.  Yet surely there was genius,
literature.  Greece owed nothing to progress.  She had preceded it.  Her
thinkers, her poets, her scientists had draws their inspiration from
nature, not civilization.  Her art had sprung full grown out of the soil.
We had never surpassed it.

"But the Greek ideal could not have been the right one, or Greece would
not so utterly have disappeared," suggested Mr. Allway.  "Unless you
reject the law of the survival of the fittest."

He had no qualms about arguing with his uncle.

"So did Archimedes disappear," he answered with a smile.  "The nameless
Roman soldier remained.  That was hardly the survival of the fittest."

He thought it the tragedy of the world that Rome had conquered Greece,
imposing her lower ideals upon the race.  Rome should have been the
servant of Greece: the hands directed by the brain.  She would have made
roads and harbours, conducted the traffic, reared the market place.  She
knew of the steam engine, employed it for pumping water in the age of the
Antonines.  Sooner or later, she would have placed it on rails, and in
ships.  Rome should have been the policeman, keeping the world in order,
making it a fit habitation.  Her mistake was in regarding these things as
an end in themselves, dreaming of nothing beyond.  From her we had
inherited the fallacy that man was made for the world, not the world for
man.  Rome organized only for man's body.  Greece would have legislated
for his soul.

They went into the drawing-room.  Her father asked her to sing and Arthur
opened the piano for her and lit the candles.  She chose some ballads and
a song of Herrick's, playing her own accompaniment while Arthur turned
the leaves.  She had a good voice, a low contralto.  The room was high
and dimly lighted.  It looked larger than it really was.  Her father sat
in his usual chair beside the fire and listened with half-closed eyes.
Glancing now and then across at him, she was reminded of Orchardson's
picture.  She was feeling sentimental, a novel sensation to her.  She
rather enjoyed it.

She finished with one of Burns's lyrics; and then told Arthur that it was
now his turn, and that she would play for him.  He shook his head,
pleading that he was out of practice.

"I wish it," she said, speaking low.  And it pleased her that he made no
answer but to ask her what he should sing.  He had a light tenor voice.
It was wobbly at first, but improved as he went on.  They ended with a
duet.

The next morning she went into town with them.  She never seemed to have
any time in London, and wanted to do some shopping.  They joined her
again for lunch and afterwards, at her father's suggestion, she and
Arthur went for a walk.  They took the tram out of the city and struck
into the country.  The leaves still lingered brown and red upon the
trees.  He carried her cloak and opened gates for her and held back
brambles while she passed.  She had always been indifferent to these
small gallantries; but to-day she welcomed them.  She wished to feel her
power to attract and command.  They avoided all subjects on which they
could differ, even in words.  They talked of people and places they had
known together.  They remembered their common love of animals and told of
the comedies and tragedies that had befallen their pets.  Joan's regret
was that she had not now even a dog, thinking it cruel to keep them in
London.  She hated the women she met, dragging the poor little depressed
beasts about at the end of a string: savage with them, if they dared to
stop for a moment to exchange a passing wag of the tail with some other
little lonely sufferer.  It was as bad as keeping a lark in a cage.  She
had tried a cat: but so often she did not get home till late and that was
just the time when the cat wanted to be out; so that they seldom met.  He
suggested a parrot.  His experience of them was that they had no regular
hours and would willingly sit up all night, if encouraged, and talk all
the time.  Joan's objection to running a parrot was that it stamped you
as an old maid; and she wasn't that, at least, not yet.  She wondered if
she could make an owl really happy.  Minerva had an owl.

He told her how one spring, walking across a common, after a fire, he had
found a mother thrush burnt to death upon her nest, her charred wings
spread out in a vain endeavour to protect her brood.  He had buried her
there among the blackened thorn and furze, and placed a little cross of
stones above her.

"I hope nobody saw me," he said with a laugh.  "But I couldn't bear to
leave her there, unhonoured."

"It's one of the things that make me less certain than I want to be of a
future existence," said Joan: "the thought that animals can have no part
in it; that all their courage and love and faithfulness dies with them
and is wasted."

"Are you sure it is?" he answered.  "It would be so unreasonable."

They had tea at an old-fashioned inn beside a stream.  It was a favourite
resort in summer time, but now they had it to themselves.  The wind had
played pranks with her hair and he found a mirror and knelt before her,
holding it.

She stood erect, looking down at him while seeming to be absorbed in the
rearrangement of her hair, feeling a little ashamed of herself.  She was
"encouraging" him.  There was no other word for it.  She seemed to have
developed a sudden penchant for this sort of thing.  It would end in his
proposing to her; and then she would have to tell him that she cared for
him only in a cousinly sort of way--whatever that might mean--and that
she could never marry him.  She dared not ask herself why.  She must
manoeuvre to put it off as long as possible; and meanwhile some opening
might occur to enlighten him.  She would talk to him about her work; and
explain to him how she had determined to devote her life to it to the
exclusion of all other distractions.  If, then, he chose to go on loving
her--or if he couldn't help it--that would not be her fault.  After all,
it did him no harm.  She could always be gracious and kind to him.  It
was not as if she had tricked him.  He had always loved her.  Kneeling
before her, serving her: it was evident it made him supremely happy.  It
would be cruel of her to end it.

The landlady entered unexpectedly with the tea; but he did not rise till
Joan turned away, nor did he seem disconcerted.  Neither did the
landlady.  She was an elderly, quiet-eyed woman, and had served more than
one generation of young people with their teas.

They returned home by train.  Joan insisted on travelling third class,
and selected a compartment containing a stout woman and two children.
Arthur had to be at the works.  An important contract had got behindhand
and they were working overtime.  She and her father dined alone.  He made
her fulfil her promise to talk about herself, and she told him all she
thought would interest him.  She passed lightly over her acquaintanceship
with Phillips.  He would regard it as highly undesirable, she told
herself, and it would trouble him.  He was reading her articles in the
_Sunday Post_, as also her Letters from Clorinda: and of the two
preferred the latter as being less subversive of law and order.  Also he
did not like seeing her photograph each week, displayed across two
columns with her name beneath in one inch type.  He supposed he was old-
fashioned.  She was getting rather tired of it herself.

"The Editor insisted upon it," she explained.  "It was worth it for the
opportunity it gives me.  I preach every Sunday to a congregation of over
a million souls.  It's better than being a Bishop.  Besides," she added,
"the men are just as bad.  You see their silly faces everywhere."

"That's like you women," he answered with a smile.  "You pretend to be
superior; and then you copy us."

She laughed.  But the next moment she was serious.

"No, we don't," she said, "not those of us who think.  We know we shall
never oust man from his place.  He will always be the greater.  We want
to help him; that's all."

"But wasn't that the Lord's idea," he said; "when He gave Eve to Adam to
be his helpmeet?"

"Yes, that was all right," she answered.  "He fashioned Eve for Adam and
saw that Adam got her.  The ideal marriage might have been the ideal
solution.  If the Lord had intended that, he should have kept the match-
making in His own hands: not have left it to man.  Somewhere in Athens
there must have been the helpmeet God had made for Socrates.  When they
met, it was Xanthippe that she kissed."

A servant brought the coffee and went out again.  Her father lighted a
cigar and handed her the cigarettes.

"Will it shock you, Dad?" she asked.

"Rather late in the day for you to worry yourself about that, isn't it?"
he answered with a smile.

He struck a match and held it for her.  Joan sat with her elbows on the
table and smoked in silence.  She was thinking.

Why had he never "brought her up," never exacted obedience from her,
never even tried to influence her?  It could not have been mere weakness.
She stole a sidelong glance at the tired, lined face with its steel-blue
eyes.  She had never seen them other than calm, but they must have been
able to flash.  Why had he always been so just and kind and patient with
her?  Why had he never scolded her and bullied her and teased her?  Why
had he let her go away, leaving him lonely in his empty, voiceless house?
Why had he never made any claim upon her?  The idea came to her as an
inspiration.  At least, it would ease her conscience.  "Why don't you let
Arthur live here," she said, "instead of going back to his lodgings?  It
would be company for you."

He did not answer for some time.  She had begun to wonder if he had
heard.

"What do you think of him?" he said, without looking at her.

"Oh, he's quite a nice lad," she answered.

It was some while again before he spoke.  "He will be the last of the
Allways," he said.  "I should like to think of the name being continued;
and he's a good business man, in spite of his dreaminess.  Perhaps he
would get on better with the men."

She seized at the chance of changing the subject.

"It was a foolish notion," she said, "that of the Manchester school: that
men and women could be treated as mere figures in a sum."

To her surprise, he agreed with her.  "The feudal system had a fine idea
in it," he said, "if it had been honestly carried out.  A master should
be the friend, the helper of his men.  They should be one family."

She looked at him a little incredulously, remembering the bitter periods
of strikes and lock-outs.

"Did you ever try, Dad?" she asked.

"Oh, yes," he answered.  "But I tried the wrong way."  "The right way
might be found," he added, "by the right man, and woman."

She felt that he was watching her through his half-closed eyes.  "There
are those cottages," he continued, "just before you come to the bridge.
They might be repaired and a club house added.  The idea is catching on,
they tell me.  Garden villages, they call them now.  It gets the men and
women away from the dirty streets; and gives the children a chance."

She knew the place.  A sad group of dilapidated little houses forming
three sides of a paved quadrangle, with a shattered fountain and withered
trees in the centre.  Ever since she could remember, they had stood there
empty, ghostly, with creaking doors and broken windows, their gardens
overgrown with weeds.

"Are they yours?" she asked.  She had never connected them with the
works, some half a mile away.  Though had she been curious, she might
have learnt that they were known as "Allway's Folly."

"Your mother's," he answered.  "I built them the year I came back from
America and gave them to her.  I thought it would interest her.  Perhaps
it would, if I had left her to her own ways."

"Why didn't they want them?" she asked.

"They did, at first," he answered.  "The time-servers and the hypocrites
among them.  I made it a condition that they should be teetotallers, and
chapel goers, and everything else that I thought good for them.  I
thought that I could save their souls by bribing them with cheap rents
and share of profits.  And then the Union came, and that of course
finished it."

So he, too, had thought to build Jerusalem.

"Yes," he said.  "I'll sound him about giving up his lodgings."

Joan lay awake for a long while that night.  The moon looked in at the
window.  It seemed to have got itself entangled in the tops of the tall
pines.  Would it not be her duty to come back--make her father happy, to
say nothing of the other.  He was a dear, sweet, lovable lad.  Together,
they might realize her father's dream: repair the blunders, plant gardens
where the weeds now grew, drive out the old sad ghosts with living
voices.  It had been a fine thought, a "King's thought."  Others had
followed, profiting by his mistakes.  But might it not be carried further
than even they had gone, shaped into some noble venture that should serve
the future.

Was not her America here?  Why seek it further?  What was this unknown
Force, that, against all sense and reason, seemed driving her out into
the wilderness to preach.  Might it not be mere vanity, mere egoism.
Almost she had convinced herself.

And then there flashed remembrance of her mother.  She, too, had laid
aside herself; had thought that love and duty could teach one to be other
than one was.  The Ego was the all important thing, entrusted to us as
the talents of silver to the faithful servant: to be developed, not for
our own purposes, but for the service of the Master.

One did no good by suppressing one's nature.  In the end it proved too
strong.  Marriage with Arthur would be only repeating the mistake.  To be
worshipped, to be served.  It would be very pleasant, when one was in the
mood.  But it would not satisfy her.  There was something strong and
fierce and primitive in her nature--something that had come down to her
through the generations from some harness-girded ancestress--something
impelling her instinctively to choose the fighter; to share with him the
joy of battle, healing his wounds, giving him of her courage, exulting
with him in the victory.

The moon had risen clear of the entangling pines.  It rode serene and
free.

Her father came to the station with her in the morning.  The train was
not in: and they walked up and down and talked.  Suddenly she remembered:
it had slipped her mind.

"Could I, as a child, have known an old clergyman?" she asked him.  "At
least he wouldn't have been old then.  I dropped into Chelsea Church one
evening and heard him preach; and on the way home I passed him again in
the street.  It seemed to me that I had seen his face before.  But not
for many years.  I meant to write you about it, but forgot."

He had to turn aside for a moment to speak to an acquaintance about
business.

"Oh, it's possible," he answered on rejoining her.  "What was his name?"

"I do not know," she answered.  "He was not the regular Incumbent.  But
it was someone that I seemed to know quite well--that I must have been
familiar with."

"It may have been," he answered carelessly, "though the gulf was wider
then than it is now.  I'll try and think.  Perhaps it is only your
fancy."

The train drew in, and he found her a corner seat, and stood talking by
the window, about common things.

"What did he preach about?" he asked her unexpectedly.

She was puzzled for the moment.  "Oh, the old clergyman," she answered,
recollecting.  "Oh, Calvary.  All roads lead to Calvary, he thought.  It
was rather interesting."

She looked back at the end of the platform.  He had not moved.




CHAPTER IX


A pile of correspondence was awaiting her and, standing by the desk, she
began to open and read it.  Suddenly she paused, conscious that someone
had entered the room and, turning, she saw Hilda.  She must have left the
door ajar, for she had heard no sound.  The child closed the door
noiselessly and came across, holding out a letter.

"Papa told me to give you this the moment you came in," she said.  Joan
had not yet taken off her things.  The child must have been keeping a
close watch.  Save for the signature it contained but one line: "I have
accepted."

Joan replaced the letter in its envelope, and laid it down upon the desk.
Unconsciously a smile played about her lips.

The child was watching her.  "I'm glad you persuaded him," she said.

Joan felt a flush mount to her face.  She had forgotten Hilda for the
instant.

She forced a laugh.  "Oh, I only persuaded him to do what he had made up
his mind to do," she explained.  "It was all settled."

"No, it wasn't," answered the child.  "Most of them were against it.  And
then there was Mama," she added in a lower tone.

"What do you mean," asked Joan.  "Didn't she wish it?"

The child raised her eyes.  There was a dull anger in them.  "Oh, what's
the good of pretending," she said.  "He's so great.  He could be the
Prime Minister of England if he chose.  But then he would have to visit
kings and nobles, and receive them at his house, and Mama--"  She broke
off with a passionate gesture of the small thin hands.

Joan was puzzled what to say.  She knew exactly what she ought to say:
what she would have said to any ordinary child.  But to say it to this
uncannily knowing little creature did not promise much good.

"Who told you I persuaded him?" she asked.

"Nobody," answered the child.  "I knew."

Joan seated herself, and drew the child towards her.

"It isn't as terrible as you think," she said.  "Many men who have risen
and taken a high place in the world were married to kind, good women
unable to share their greatness.  There was Shakespeare, you know, who
married Anne Hathaway and had a clever daughter.  She was just a nice,
homely body a few years older than himself.  And he seems to have been
very fond of her; and was always running down to Stratford to be with
her."

"Yes, but he didn't bring her up to London," answered the child.  "Mama
would have wanted to come; and Papa would have let her, and wouldn't have
gone to see Queen Elizabeth unless she had been invited too."

Joan wished she had not mentioned Shakespeare.  There had surely been
others; men who had climbed up and carried their impossible wives with
them.  But she couldn't think of one, just then.

"We must help her," she answered somewhat lamely.  "She's anxious to
learn, I know."

The child shook her head.  "She doesn't understand," she said.  "And Papa
won't tell her.  He says it would only hurt her and do no good."  The
small hands were clenched.  "I shall hate her if she spoils his life."

The atmosphere was becoming tragic.  Joan felt the need of escaping from
it.  She sprang up.

"Oh, don't be nonsensical," she said.  "Your father isn't the only man
married to a woman not as clever as himself.  He isn't going to let that
stop him.  And your mother's going to learn to be the wife of a great man
and do the best she can.  And if they don't like her they've got to put
up with her.  I shall talk to the both of them."  A wave of motherliness
towards the entire Phillips family passed over her.  It included Hilda.
She caught the child to her and gave her a hug.  "You go back to school,"
she said, "and get on as fast as you can, so that you'll be able to be
useful to him."

The child flung her arms about her.  "You're so beautiful and wonderful,"
she said.  "You can do anything.  I'm so glad you came."

Joan laughed.  It was surprising how easily the problem had been solved.
She would take Mrs. Phillips in hand at once.  At all events she should
be wholesome and unobtrusive.  It would be a delicate mission, but Joan
felt sure of her own tact.  She could see his boyish eyes turned upon her
with wonder and gratitude.

"I was so afraid you would not be back before I went," said the child.  "I
ought to have gone this afternoon, but Papa let me stay till the
evening."

"You will help?" she added, fixing on Joan her great, grave eyes.

Joan promised, and the child went out.  She looked pretty when she
smiled.  She closed the door behind her noiselessly.

It occurred to Joan that she would like to talk matters over with
Greyson.  There was "Clorinda's" attitude to be decided upon; and she was
interested to know what view he himself would take.  Of course he would
be on P---'s side.  The _Evening Gazette_ had always supported the "gas
and water school" of socialism; and to include the people's food was
surely only an extension of the principle.  She rang him up and Miss
Greyson answered, asking her to come round to dinner: they would be
alone.  And she agreed.

The Greysons lived in a small house squeezed into an angle of the Outer
Circle, overlooking Regent's Park.  It was charmingly furnished, chiefly
with old Chippendale.  The drawing-room made quite a picture.  It was
home-like and restful with its faded colouring, and absence of all show
and overcrowding.  They sat there after dinner and discussed Joan's news.
Miss Greyson was repairing a piece of old embroidery she had brought back
with her from Italy; and Greyson sat smoking, with his hands behind his
head, and his long legs stretched out towards the fire.

"Carleton will want him to make his food policy include Tariff Reform,"
he said.  "If he prove pliable, and is willing to throw over his free
trade principles, all well and good."

"What's Carleton got to do with it?" demanded Joan with a note of
indignation.

He turned his head towards her with an amused raising of the eyebrows.
"Carleton owns two London dailies," he answered, "and is in treaty for a
third: together with a dozen others scattered about the provinces.  Most
politicians find themselves, sooner or later, convinced by his arguments.
Phillips may prove the exception."

"It would be rather interesting, a fight between them," said Joan.
"Myself I should back Phillips."

"He might win through," mused Greyson.  "He's the man to do it, if
anybody could.  But the odds will be against him."

"I don't see it," said Joan, with decision.

"I'm afraid you haven't yet grasped the power of the Press," he answered
with a smile.  "Phillips speaks occasionally to five thousand people.
Carleton addresses every day a circle of five million readers."

"Yes, but when Phillips does speak, he speaks to the whole country,"
retorted Joan.

"Through the medium of Carleton and his like; and just so far as they
allow his influence to permeate beyond the platform," answered Greyson.

"But they report his speeches.  They are bound to," explained Joan.

"It doesn't read quite the same," he answered.  "Phillips goes home under
the impression that he has made a great success and has roused the
country.  He and millions of other readers learn from the next morning's
headlines that it was 'A Tame Speech' that he made.  What sounded to him
'Loud Cheers' have sunk to mild 'Hear, Hears.'  That five minutes'
hurricane of applause, during which wildly excited men and women leapt
upon the benches and roared themselves hoarse, and which he felt had
settled the whole question, he searches for in vain.  A few silly
interjections, probably pre-arranged by Carleton's young lions, become
'renewed interruptions.'  The report is strictly truthful; but the
impression produced is that Robert Phillips has failed to carry even his
own people with him.  And then follow leaders in fourteen
widely-circulated Dailies, stretching from the Clyde to the Severn,
foretelling how Mr. Robert Phillips could regain his waning popularity by
the simple process of adopting Tariff Reform: or whatever the pet panacea
of Carleton and Co. may, at the moment, happen to be."

"Don't make us out all alike," pleaded his sister with a laugh.  "There
are still a few old-fashioned papers that do give their opponents fair
play."

"They are not increasing in numbers," he answered, "and the Carleton
group is.  There is no reason why in another ten years he should not
control the entire popular press of the country.  He's got the genius and
he's got the means."

"The cleverest thing he has done," he continued, turning to Joan, "is
your _Sunday Post_.  Up till then, the working classes had escaped him.
With the _Sunday Post_, he has solved the problem.  They open their
mouths; and he gives them their politics wrapped up in pictures and
gossipy pars."

Miss Greyson rose and put away her embroidery.  "But what's his object?"
she said.  "He must have more money than he can spend; and he works like
a horse.  I could understand it, if he had any beliefs."

"Oh, we can all persuade ourselves that we are the Heaven-ordained
dictator of the human race," he answered.  "Love of power is at the
bottom of it.  Why do our Rockefellers and our Carnegies condemn
themselves to the existence of galley slaves, ruining their digestions so
that they never can enjoy a square meal.  It isn't the money; it's the
trouble of their lives how to get rid of that.  It is the notoriety, the
power that they are out for.  In Carleton's case, it is to feel himself
the power behind the throne; to know that he can make and unmake
statesmen; has the keys of peace and war in his pocket; is able to
exclaim: Public opinion?  It is I."

"It can be a respectable ambition," suggested Joan.

"It has been responsible for most of man's miseries," he answered.  "Every
world's conqueror meant to make it happy after he had finished knocking
it about.  We are all born with it, thanks to the devil."  He shifted his
position and regarded her with critical eyes.  "You've got it badly," he
said.  "I can see it in the tilt of your chin and the quivering of your
nostrils.  You beware of it."

Miss Greyson left them.  She had to finish an article.  They debated
"Clorinda's" views; and agreed that, as a practical housekeeper, she
would welcome attention being given to the question of the nation's food.
The _Evening Gazette_ would support Phillips in principle, while
reserving to itself the right of criticism when it came to details.

"What's he like in himself?" he asked her.  "You've been seeing something
of him, haven't you?"

"Oh, a little," she answered.  "He's absolutely sincere; and he means
business.  He won't stop at the bottom of the ladder now he's once got
his foot upon it."

"But he's quite common, isn't he?" he asked again.  "I've only met him in
public."

"No, that's precisely what he isn't," answered Joan.  "You feel that he
belongs to no class, but his own.  The class of the Abraham Lincolns, and
the Dantons."

"England's a different proposition," he mused.  "Society counts for so
much with us.  I doubt if we should accept even an Abraham Lincoln:
unless in some supreme crisis.  His wife rather handicaps him, too,
doesn't she?"

"She wasn't born to be the chatelaine of Downing Street," Joan admitted.
"But it's not an official position."

"I'm not so sure that it isn't," he laughed.  "It's the dinner-table that
rules in England.  We settle everything round a dinner-table."

She was sitting in front of the fire in a high-backed chair.  She never
cared to loll, and the shaded light from the electric sconces upon the
mantelpiece illumined her.

"If the world were properly stage-managed, that's what you ought to be,"
he said, "the wife of a Prime Minister.  I can see you giving such an
excellent performance."

"I must talk to Mary," he added, "see if we can't get you off on some
promising young Under Secretary."

"Don't give me ideas above my station," laughed Joan.  "I'm a
journalist."

"That's the pity of it," he said.  "You're wasting the most important
thing about you, your personality.  You would do more good in a drawing-
room, influencing the rulers, than you will ever do hiding behind a pen.
It was the drawing-room that made the French Revolution."

The firelight played about her hair.  "I suppose every woman dreams of
reviving the old French Salon," she answered.  "They must have been
gloriously interesting."  He was leaning forward with clasped hands.  "Why
shouldn't she?" he said.  "The reason that our drawing-rooms have ceased
to lead is that our beautiful women are generally frivolous and our
clever women unfeminine.  What we are waiting for is an English Madame
Roland."

Joan laughed.  "Perhaps I shall some day," she answered.

He insisted on seeing her as far as the bus.  It was a soft, mild night;
and they walked round the Circle to Gloucester Gate.  He thought there
would be more room in the buses at that point.

"I wish you would come oftener," he said.  "Mary has taken such a liking
to you.  If you care to meet people, we can always whip up somebody of
interest."

She promised that she would.  She always felt curiously at home with the
Greysons.

They were passing the long sweep of Chester Terrace.  "I like this
neighbourhood with its early Victorian atmosphere," she said.  "It always
makes me feel quiet and good.  I don't know why."

"I like the houses, too," he said.  "There's a character about them.  You
don't often find such fine drawing-rooms in London."

"Don't forget your promise," he reminded her, when they parted.  "I shall
tell Mary she may write to you."

She met Carleton by chance a day or two later, as she was entering the
office.  "I want to see you," he said; and took her up with him into his
room.

"We must stir the people up about this food business," he said, plunging
at once into his subject.  "Phillips is quite right.  It overshadows
everything.  We must make the country self-supporting.  It can be done
and must.  If a war were to be sprung upon us we could be starved out in
a month.  Our navy, in face of these new submarines, is no longer able to
secure us.  France is working day and night upon them.  It may be a
bogey, or it may not.  If it isn't, she would have us at her mercy; and
it's too big a risk to run.  You live in the same house with him, don't
you?  Do you often see him?"

"Not often," she answered.

He was reading a letter.  "You were dining there on Friday night, weren't
you?" he asked her, without looking up.

Joan flushed.  What did he mean by cross-examining her in this way?  She
was not at all used to impertinence from the opposite sex.

"Your information is quite correct," she answered.

Her anger betrayed itself in her tone; and he shot a swift glance at her.

"I didn't mean to offend you," he said.  "A mutual friend, a Mr. Airlie,
happened to be of the party, and he mentioned you."

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."

"And if he can't?" suggested Joan.

He fixed his large, colourless eyes upon her.  "That's where you can help
him," he answered.  "If he and I combine forces, we can pull this through
in spite of the furious opposition that it is going to arouse.  Without a
good Press he is helpless; and where is he going to get his Press backing
if he turns me down?  From half a dozen Socialist papers whose support
will do him more harm than good.  If he will bring the working class over
to Protection I will undertake that the Tariff Reformers and the