There was only one hope that he could see: and that was to switch the

people's mind on to some other excitement.  His advices from London told
him that a parliamentary crisis was pending.  Could not Mrs. Denton and
her party do something to hasten it?  He, on his side, would consult with
the Socialist leaders, who might have something to suggest.

He met Joan, radiant, a morning or two later.  The English Government had
resigned and preparations for a general election were already on foot.

"And God has been good to us, also," he explained.

A well-known artist had been found murdered in his bed and grave
suspicion attached to his beautiful young wife.

"She deserves the Croix de Guerre, if it is proved that she did it," he
thought.  "She will have saved many thousands of lives--for the present."

Folk had fixed up a party at his studio to meet her.  She had been there
once or twice; but this was a final affair.  She had finished her
business in Paris and would be leaving the next morning.  To her
surprise, she found Phillips there.  He had come over hurriedly to attend
a Socialist conference, and Leblanc, the editor of _Le Nouveau Monde_,
had brought him along.

"I took Smedley's place at the last moment," he whispered to her.  "I've
never been abroad before.  You don't mind, do you?"

It didn't strike her as at all odd that a leader of a political party
should ask her "if she minded" his being in Paris to attend a political
conference.  He was wearing a light grey suit and a blue tie.  There was
nothing about him, at that moment, suggesting that he was a leader of any
sort.  He might have been just any man, but for his eyes.

"No," she whispered.  "Of course not.  I don't like your tie."  It seemed
to depress him, that.

She felt elated at the thought that he would see her for the first time
amid surroundings where she would shine.  Folk came forward to meet her
with that charming air of protective deference that he had adopted
towards her.  He might have been some favoured minister of state kissing
the hand of a youthful Queen.  She glanced down the long studio, ending
in its fine window overlooking the park.  Some of the most distinguished
men in Paris were there, and the immediate stir of admiration that her
entrance had created was unmistakable.  Even the women turned pleased
glances at her; as if willing to recognize in her their representative.  A
sense of power came to her that made her feel kind to all the world.
There was no need for her to be clever: to make any effort to attract.
Her presence, her sympathy, her approval seemed to be all that was needed
of her.  She had the consciousness that by the mere exercise of her will
she could sway the thoughts and actions of these men: that sovereignty
had been given to her.  It reflected itself in her slightly heightened
colour, in the increased brilliance of her eyes, in the confident case of
all her movements.  It added a compelling softness to her voice.

She never quite remembered what the talk was about.  Men were brought up
and presented to her, and hung about her words, and sought to please her.
She had spoken her own thoughts, indifferent whether they expressed
agreement or not; and the argument had invariably taken another plane.  It
seemed so important that she should be convinced.  Some had succeeded,
and had been strengthened.  Others had failed, and had departed
sorrowful, conscious of the necessity of "thinking it out again."

Guests with other engagements were taking their leave.  A piquante little
woman, outrageously but effectively dressed--she looked like a drawing by
Beardsley--drew her aside.  "I've always wished I were a man," she said.
"It seemed to me that they had all the power.  From this afternoon, I
shall be proud of belonging to the governing sex."

She laughed and slipped away.

Phillips was waiting for her in the vestibule.  She had forgotten him;
but now she felt glad of his humble request to be allowed to see her
home.  It would have been such a big drop from her crowded hour of
triumph to the long lonely cab ride and the solitude of the hotel.  She
resolved to be gracious, feeling a little sorry for her neglect of
him--but reflecting with satisfaction that he had probably been watching
her the whole time.

"What's the matter with my tie?" he asked.  "Wrong colour?"

She laughed.  "Yes," she answered.  "It ought to be grey to match your
suit.  And so ought your socks."

"I didn't know it was going to be such a swell affair, or I shouldn't
have come," he said.

She touched his hand lightly.

"I want you to get used to it," she said.  "It's part of your work.  Put
your brain into it, and don't be afraid."

"I'll try," he said.

He was sitting on the front seat, facing her.  "I'm glad I went," he said
with sudden vehemence.  "I loved watching you, moving about among all
those people.  I never knew before how beautiful you are."

Something in his eyes sent a slight thrill of fear through her.  It was
not an unpleasant sensation--rather exhilarating.  She watched the
passing street till she felt that his eyes were no longer devouring her.

"You're not offended?" he asked.  "At my thinking you beautiful?" he
added, in case she hadn't understood.

She laughed.  Her confidence had returned to her.  "It doesn't generally
offend a woman," she answered.

He seemed relieved.  "That's what's so wonderful about you," he said.
"I've met plenty of clever, brilliant women, but one could forget that
they were women.  You're everything."

He pleaded, standing below her on the steps of the hotel, that she would
dine with him.  But she shook her head.  She had her packing to do.  She
could have managed it; but something prudent and absurd had suddenly got
hold of her; and he went away with much the same look in his eyes that
comes to a dog when he finds that his master cannot be persuaded into an
excursion.

She went up to her room.  There really was not much to do.  She could
quite well finish her packing in the morning.  She sat down at the desk
and set to work to arrange her papers.  It was a warm spring evening, and
the window was open.  A crowd of noisy sparrows seemed to be delighted
about something.  From somewhere, unseen, a blackbird was singing.  She
read over her report for Mrs. Denton.  The blackbird seemed never to have
heard of war.  He sang as if the whole world were a garden of languor and
love.  Joan looked at her watch.  The first gong would sound in a few
minutes.  She pictured the dreary, silent dining-room with its few
scattered occupants, and her heart sank at the prospect.  To her relief
came remembrance of a cheerful but entirely respectable restaurant near
to the Louvre to which she had been taken a few nights before.  She had
noticed quite a number of women dining there alone.  She closed her
dispatch case with a snap and gave a glance at herself in the great
mirror.  The blackbird was still singing.

She walked up the Rue des Sts. Peres, enjoying the delicious air.  Half
way across the bridge she overtook a man, strolling listlessly in front
of her.  There was something familiar about him.  He was wearing a grey
suit and had his hands in his pockets.  Suddenly the truth flashed upon
her.  She stopped.  If he strolled on, she would be able to slip back.
Instead of which he abruptly turned to look down at a passing steamer,
and they were face to face.

It made her mad, the look of delight that came into his eyes.  She could
have boxed his ears.  Hadn't he anything else to do but hang about the
streets.

He explained that he had been listening to the band in the gardens,
returning by the Quai d'Orsay.

"Do let me come with you," he said.  "I kept myself free this evening,
hoping.  And I'm feeling so lonesome."

Poor fellow!  She had come to understand that feeling.  After all, it
wasn't altogether his fault that they had met.  And she had been so cross
to him!

He was reading every expression on her face.

"It's such a lovely evening," he said.  "Couldn't we go somewhere and
dine under a tree?"

It would be rather pleasant.  There was a little place at Meudon, she
remembered.  The plane trees would just be in full leaf.

A passing cab had drawn up close to them.  The chauffeur was lighting his
pipe.

Even Mrs. Grundy herself couldn't object to a journalist dining with a
politician!

The stars came out before they had ended dinner.  She had made him talk
about himself.  It was marvellous what he had accomplished with his
opportunities.  Ten hours a day in the mines had earned for him his
living, and the night had given him his leisure.  An attic, lighted by a
tallow candle, with a shelf of books that left him hardly enough for
bread, had been his Alma Mater.  History was his chief study.  There was
hardly an authority Joan could think of with which he was not familiar.
_Julius Caesar_ was his favourite play.  He seemed to know it by heart.
At twenty-three he had been elected a delegate, and had entered
Parliament at twenty-eight.  It had been a life of hardship, of
privation, of constant strain; but she found herself unable to pity him.
It was a tale of strength, of struggle, of victory, that he told her.

Strength!  The shaded lamplight fell upon his fearless kindly face with
its flashing eyes and its humorous mouth.  He ought to have been drinking
out of a horn, not a wine glass that his well-shaped hand could have
crushed by a careless pressure.  In a winged helmet and a coat of mail he
would have looked so much more fitly dressed than in that soft felt hat
and ridiculous blue tie.

She led him to talk on about the future.  She loved to hear his clear,
confident voice with its touch of boyish boastfulness.  What was there to
stop him?  Why should he not climb from power to power till he had
reached the end!

And as he talked and dreamed there grew up in her heart a fierce anger.
What would her own future be?  She would marry probably some man of her
own class, settle down to the average woman's "life"; be allowed, like a
spoilt child, to still "take an interest" in public affairs: hold
"drawing-rooms" attended by cranks and political nonentities: be
President, perhaps, of the local Woman's Liberal League.  The
alternative: to spend her days glued to a desk, penning exhortations to
the people that Carleton and his like might or might not allow them to
read; while youth and beauty slipped away from her, leaving her one of
the ten thousand other lonely, faded women, forcing themselves unwelcome
into men's jobs.  There came to her a sense of having been robbed of what
was hers by primitive eternal law.  Greyson had been right.  She did love
power--power to serve and shape the world.  She would have earned it and
used it well.  She could have helped him, inspired him.  They would have
worked together: he the force and she the guidance.  She would have
supplied the things he lacked.  It was to her he came for counsel, as it
was.  But for her he would never have taken the first step.  What right
had this poor brainless lump of painted flesh to share his wounds, his
triumphs?  What help could she give him when the time should come that he
should need it?

Suddenly he broke off.  "What a fool I'm making of myself," he said.  "I
always was a dreamer."

She forced a laugh.  "Why shouldn't it come true?" she asked.

They had the little garden to themselves.  The million lights of Paris
shone below them.

"Because you won't be there," he answered, "and without you I can't do
it.  You think I'm always like I am to-night, bragging, confident.  So I
am when you are with me.  You give me back my strength.  The plans and
hopes and dreams that were slipping from me come crowding round me,
laughing and holding out their hands.  They are like the children.  They
need two to care for them.  I want to talk about them to someone who
understands them and loves them, as I do.  I want to feel they are dear
to someone else, as well as to myself: that I must work for them for her
sake, as well as for my own.  I want someone to help me to bring them
up."

There were tears in his eyes.  He brushed them angrily away.  "Oh, I know
I ought to be ashamed of myself," he said.  "It wasn't her fault.  She
wasn't to know that a hot-blooded young chap of twenty hasn't all his
wits about him, any more than I was.  If I had never met you, it wouldn't
have mattered.  I'd have done my bit of good, and have stopped there,
content.  With you beside me"--he looked away from her to where the
silent city peeped through its veil of night--"I might have left the
world better than I found it."

The blood had mounted to her face.  She drew back into the shadow, beyond
the tiny sphere of light made by the little lamp.

"Men have accomplished great things without a woman's help," she said.

"Some men," he answered.  "Artists and poets.  They have the woman within
them.  Men like myself--the mere fighter: we are incomplete in ourselves.
Male and female created He them.  We are lost without our mate."

He was thinking only of himself.  Had he no pity for her.  So was she,
also, useless without her mate.  Neither was she of those, here and
there, who can stand alone.  Her task was that of the eternal woman: to
make a home: to cleanse the world of sin and sorrow, make it a kinder
dwelling-place for the children that should come.  This man was her true
helpmeet.  He would have been her weapon, her dear servant; and she could
have rewarded him as none other ever could.  The lamplight fell upon his
ruddy face, his strong white hands resting on the flimsy table.  He
belonged to an older order than her own.  That suggestion about him of
something primitive, of something not yet altogether tamed.  She felt
again that slight thrill of fear that so strangely excited her.  A mist
seemed to be obscuring all things.  He seemed to be coming towards her.
Only by keeping her eyes fixed on his moveless hands, still resting on
the table, could she convince herself that his arms were not closing
about her, that she was not being drawn nearer and nearer to him,
powerless to resist.

Suddenly, out of the mist, she heard voices.  The waiter was standing
beside him with the bill.  She reached out her hand and took it.  The
usual few mistakes had occurred.  She explained them, good temperedly,
and the waiter, with profuse apologies, went back to have it corrected.

He turned to her as the man went.  "Try and forgive me," he said in a low
voice.  "It all came tumbling out before I thought what I was saying."

The blood was flowing back into her veins.  "Oh, it wasn't your fault,"
she answered.  "We must make the best we can of it."

He bent forward so that he could see into her eyes.

"Tell me," he said.  There was a note of fierce exultation in his voice.
"I'll promise never to speak of it again.  If I had been a free man,
could I have won you?"

She had risen while he was speaking.  She moved to him and laid her hands
upon his shoulders.

"Will you serve me and fight for me against all my enemies?" she asked.

"So long as I live," he answered.

She glanced round.  There was no sign of the returning waiter.  She bent
over him and kissed him.

"Don't come with me," she said.  "There's a cab stand in the Avenue.  I
shall walk to Sevres and take the train."

She did not look back.




CHAPTER XII


She reached home in the evening.  The Phillips's old rooms had been twice
let since Christmas, but were now again empty.  The McKean with his
silent ways and his everlasting pipe had gone to America to superintend
the production of one of his plays.  The house gave her the feeling of
being haunted.  She had her dinner brought up to her and prepared for a
long evening's work; but found herself unable to think--except on the one
subject that she wanted to put off thinking about.  To her relief the
last post brought her a letter from Arthur.  He had been called to Lisbon
to look after a contract, and would be away for a fortnight.  Her father
was not as well as he had been.

It seemed to just fit in.  She would run down and spend a few quiet days
at Liverpool.  In her old familiar room where the moon peeped in over the
tops of the tall pines she would be able to reason things out.  Perhaps
her father would be able to help her.  She had lost her childish
conception of him as of someone prim and proper, with cut and dried
formulas for all occasions.  That glimpse he had shown her of himself had
established a fellowship between them.  He, too, had wrestled with life's
riddles, not sure of his own answers.  She found him suffering from his
old heart trouble, but more cheerful than she had known him for years.
Arthur seemed to be doing wonders with the men.  They were coming to
trust him.

"The difficulty I have always been up against," explained her father,
"has been their suspicion.  'What's the cunning old rascal up to now?
What's his little game?'  That is always what I have felt they were
thinking to themselves whenever I have wanted to do anything for them.  It
isn't anything he says to them.  It seems to be just he, himself."

He sketched out their plans to her.  It seemed to be all going in at one
ear and out at the other.  What was the matter with her?  Perhaps she was
tired without knowing it.  She would get him to tell her all about it to-
morrow.  Also, to-morrow, she would tell him about Phillips, and ask his
advice.  It was really quite late.  If he talked any more now, it would
give her a headache.  She felt it coming on.

She made her "good-night" extra affectionate, hoping to disguise her
impatience.  She wanted to get up to her own room.

But even that did not help her.  It seemed in some mysterious way to be
no longer her room, but the room of someone she had known and half
forgotten: who would never come back.  It gave her the same feeling she
had experienced on returning to the house in London: that the place was
haunted.  The high cheval glass from her mother's dressing-room had been
brought there for her use.  The picture of an absurdly small child--the
child to whom this room had once belonged--standing before it naked, rose
before her eyes.  She had wanted to see herself.  She had thought that
only her clothes stood in the way.  If we could but see ourselves, as in
some magic mirror?  All the garments usage and education has dressed us
up in laid aside.  What was she underneath her artificial niceties, her
prim moralities, her laboriously acquired restraints, her unconscious
pretences and hypocrisies?  She changed her clothes for a loose robe, and
putting out the light drew back the curtains.  The moon peeped in over
the top of the tall pines, but it only stared at her, indifferent.  It
seemed to be looking for somebody else.

Suddenly, and intensely to her own surprise, she fell into a passionate
fit of weeping.  There was no reason for it, and it was altogether so
unlike her.  But for quite a while she was unable to control it.
Gradually, and of their own accord, her sobs lessened, and she was able
to wipe her eyes and take stock of herself in the long glass.  She
wondered for the moment whether it was really her own reflection that she
saw there or that of some ghostly image of her mother.  She had so often
seen the same look in her mother's eyes.  Evidently the likeness between
them was more extensive than she had imagined.  For the first time she
became conscious of an emotional, hysterical side to her nature of which
she had been unaware.  Perhaps it was just as well that she had
discovered it.  She would have to keep a stricter watch upon herself.
This question of her future relationship with Phillips: it would have to
be thought out coldly, dispassionately.  Nothing unexpected must be
allowed to enter into it.

It was some time before she fell asleep.  The high glass faced her as she
lay in bed.  She could not get away from the idea that it was her
mother's face that every now and then she saw reflected there.

She woke late the next morning.  Her father had already left for the
works.  She was rather glad to have no need of talking.  She would take a
long walk into the country, and face the thing squarely with the help of
the cheerful sun and the free west wind that was blowing from the sea.
She took the train up north and struck across the hills.  Her spirits
rose as she walked.

It was only the intellectual part of him she wanted--the spirit, not the
man.  She would be taking nothing away from the woman, nothing that had
ever belonged to her.  All the rest of him: his home life, the benefits
that would come to her from his improved means, from his social position:
all that the woman had ever known or cared for in him would still be
hers.  He would still remain to her the kind husband and father.  What
more was the woman capable of understanding?  What more had she any right
to demand?

It was not of herself she was thinking.  It was for his work's sake that
she wanted to be near to him always: that she might counsel him,
encourage him.  For this she was prepared to sacrifice herself, give up
her woman's claim on life.  They would be friends, comrades--nothing
more.  That little lurking curiosity of hers, concerning what it would be
like to feel his strong arms round her, pressing her closer and closer to
him: it was only a foolish fancy.  She could easily laugh that out of
herself.  Only bad women had need to be afraid of themselves.  She would
keep guard for both of them.  Their purity of motive, their high purpose,
would save them from the danger of anything vulgar or ridiculous.

Of course they would have to be careful.  There must be no breath of
gossip, no food for evil tongues.  About that she was determined even
more for his sake than her own.  It would be fatal to his career.  She
was quite in agreement with the popular demand, supposed to be peculiarly
English, that a public man's life should be above reproach.  Of what use
these prophets without self-control; these social reformers who could not
shake the ape out of themselves?  Only the brave could give courage to
others.  Only through the pure could God's light shine upon men.

It was vexing his having moved round the corner, into North Street.  Why
couldn't the silly woman have been content where she was.  Living under
one roof, they could have seen one another as often as was needful
without attracting attention.  Now, she supposed, she would have to be
more than ever the bosom friend of Mrs. Phillips--spend hours amid that
hideous furniture, surrounded by those bilious wallpapers.  Of course he
could not come to her.  She hoped he would appreciate the sacrifice she
would be making for him.  Fortunately Mrs. Phillips would give no
trouble.  She would not even understand.

What about Hilda?  No hope of hiding their secret from those sharp eyes.
But Hilda would approve.  They could trust Hilda.  The child might prove
helpful.

It cast a passing shadow upon her spirits, this necessary descent into
details.  It brought with it the suggestion of intrigue, of deceit:
robbing the thing, to a certain extent, of its fineness.  Still, what was
to be done?  If women were coming into public life these sort of
relationships with men would have to be faced and worked out.  Sex must
no longer be allowed to interfere with the working together of men and
women for common ends.  It was that had kept the world back.  They would
be the pioneers of the new order.  Casting aside their earthly passions,
humbly with pure hearts they would kneel before God's altar.  He should
bless their union.

A lark was singing.  She stood listening.  Higher and higher he rose,
pouring out his song of worship; till the tiny, fragile body disappeared
as if fallen from him, leaving his sweet soul still singing.  The happy
tears came to her eyes, and she passed on.  She did not hear that little
last faint sob with which he sank exhausted back to earth beside a hidden
nest among the furrows.

She had forgotten the time.  It was already late afternoon.  Her long
walk and the keen air had made her hungry.  She had a couple of eggs with
her tea at a village inn, and was fortunate enough to catch a train that
brought her back in time for dinner.  A little ashamed of her
unresponsiveness the night before, she laid herself out to be sympathetic
to her father's talk.  She insisted on hearing again all that he and
Arthur were doing, opposing him here and there with criticism just
sufficient to stimulate him; careful in the end to let him convince her.

These small hypocrisies were new to her.  She hoped she was not damaging
her character.  But it was good, watching him slyly from under drawn-down
lids, to see the flash of triumph that would come into his tired eyes in
answer to her half-protesting: "Yes, I see your point, I hadn't thought
of that," her half reluctant admission that "perhaps" he was right,
there; that "perhaps" she was wrong.  It was delightful to see him young
again, eager, boyishly pleased with himself.  It seemed there was a joy
she had not dreamed of in yielding victory as well as in gaining it.  A
new tenderness was growing up in her.  How considerate, how patient, how
self-forgetful he had always been.  She wanted to mother him.  To take
him in her arms and croon over him, hushing away remembrance of the old
sad days.

Folk's words came back to her: "And poor Jack Allway.  Tell him I thank
him for all those years of love and gentleness."  She gave him the
message.

Folk had been right.  He was not offended.  "Dear old chap," he said.
"That was kind of him.  He was always generous."

He was silent for a while, with a quiet look on his face.

"Give him our love," he said.  "Tell him we came together, at the end."

It was on her tongue to ask him, as so often she had meant to do of late,
what had been the cause of her mother's illness--if illness it was: what
it was that had happened to change both their lives.  But always
something had stopped her--something ever present, ever watchful, that
seemed to shape itself out of the air, bending towards her with its
finger on its lips.

She stayed over the week-end; and on the Saturday, at her suggestion,
they took a long excursion into the country.  It was the first time she
had ever asked him to take her out.  He came down to breakfast in a new
suit, and was quite excited.  In the car his hand had sought hers shyly,
and, feeling her responsive pressure, he had continued to hold it; and
they had sat for a long time in silence.  She decided not to tell him
about Phillips, just yet.  He knew of him only from the Tory newspapers
and would form a wrong idea.  She would bring them together and leave
Phillips to make his own way.  He would like Phillips when he knew him,
she felt sure.  He, too, was a people's man.  The torch passed down to
him from his old Ironside ancestors, it still glowed.  More than once she
had seen it leap to flame.  In congenial atmosphere, it would burn clear
and steadfast.  It occurred to her what a delightful solution of her
problem, if later on her father could be persuaded to leave Arthur in
charge of the works, and come to live with her in London.  There was a
fine block of flats near Chelsea Church with long views up and down the
river.  How happy they could be there; the drawing-room in the Adams
style with wine-coloured curtains!  He was a father any young woman could
be proud to take about.  Unconsciously she gave his hand an impulsive
squeeze.  They lunched at an old inn upon the moors; and the landlady,
judging from his shy, attentive ways, had begun by addressing her as
Madame.

"You grow wonderfully like your mother," he told her that evening at
dinner.  "There used to be something missing.  But I don't feel that,
now."

She wrote to Phillips to meet her, if possible, at Euston.  There were
things she wanted to talk to him about.  There was the question whether
she should go on writing for Carleton, or break with him at once.  Also
one or two points that were worrying her in connection with tariff
reform.  He was waiting for her on the platform.  It appeared he, too,
had much to say.  He wanted her advice concerning his next speech.  He
had not dined and suggested supper.  They could not walk about the
streets.  Likely enough, it was only her imagination, but it seemed to
her that people in the restaurant had recognized him, and were whispering
to one another: he was bound to be well known.  Likewise her own
appearance, she felt, was against them as regarded their desire to avoid
observation.  She would have to take to those mousey colours that did not
suit her, and wear a veil.  She hated the idea of a veil.  It came from
the East and belonged there.  Besides, what would be the use?  Unless he
wore one too.  "Who is the veiled woman that Phillips goes about with?"
That is what they would ask.  It was going to be very awkward, the whole
thing.  Viewed from the distance, it had looked quite fine.  "Dedicating
herself to the service of Humanity" was how it had presented itself to
her in the garden at Meudon, the twinkling labyrinth of Paris at her
feet, its sordid by-ways hidden beneath its myriad lights.  She had not
bargained for the dedication involving the loss of her self-respect.

They did not talk as much as they had thought they would.  He was not
very helpful on the Carleton question.  There was so much to be said both
for and against.  It might be better to wait and see how circumstances
shaped themselves.  She thought his speech excellent.  It was difficult
to discover any argument against it.

He seemed to be more interested in looking at her when he thought she was
not noticing.  That little faint vague fear came back to her and stayed
with her, but brought no quickening of her pulse.  It was a fear of
something ugly.  She had the feeling they were both acting, that
everything depended upon their not forgetting their parts.  In handing
things to one another, they were both of them so careful that their hands
should not meet and touch.

They walked together back to Westminster and wished each other a short
good-night upon what once had been their common doorstep.  With her
latchkey in her hand, she turned and watched his retreating figure, and
suddenly a wave of longing seized her to run after him and call him
back--to see his eyes light up and feel the pressure of his hands.  It
was only by clinging to the railings and counting till she was sure he
had entered his own house round the corner and closed the door behind
him, that she restrained herself.

It was a frightened face that looked at her out of the glass, as she
stood before it taking off her hat.

She decided that their future meetings should be at his own house.  Mrs.
Phillips's only complaint was that she knocked at the door too seldom.

"I don't know what I should do without you, I really don't," confessed
the grateful lady.  "If ever I become a Prime Minister's wife, it's you I
shall have to thank.  You've got so much courage yourself, you can put
the heart into him.  I never had any pluck to spare myself."

She concluded by giving Joan a hug, accompanied by a sloppy but heartfelt
kiss.

She would stand behind Phillips's chair with her fat arms round his neck,
nodding her approval and encouragement; while Joan, seated opposite,
would strain every nerve to keep her brain fixed upon the argument, never
daring to look at poor Phillips's wretched face, with its pleading,
apologetic eyes, lest she should burst into hysterical laughter.  She
hoped she was being helpful and inspiring!  Mrs. Phillips would assure
her afterwards that she had been wonderful.  As for herself, there were
periods when she hadn't the faintest idea about what she was talking.

Sometimes Mrs. Phillips, called away by domestic duty, would leave them;
returning full of excuses just as they had succeeded in forgetting her.
It was evident she was under the impression that her presence was useful
to them, making it easier for them to open up their minds to one another.

"Don't you be put off by his seeming a bit unresponsive," Mrs. Phillips
would explain.  "He's shy with women.  What I'm trying to do is to make
him feel you are one of the family."

"And don't you take any notice of me," further explained the good woman,
"when I seem to be in opposition, like.  I chip in now and then on
purpose, just to keep the ball rolling.  It stirs him up, a bit of
contradictoriness.  You have to live with a man before you understand
him."

One morning Joan received a letter from Phillips, marked immediate.  He
informed her that his brain was becoming addled.  He intended that
afternoon to give it a draught of fresh air.  He would be at the Robin
Hood gate in Richmond Park at three o'clock.  Perhaps the gods would be
good to him.  He would wait there for half an hour to give them a chance,
anyway.

She slipped the letter unconsciously into the bosom of her dress, and sat
looking out of the window.  It promised to be a glorious day, and London
was stifling and gritty.  Surely no one but an unwholesome-minded prude
could jib at a walk across a park.  Mrs. Phillips would be delighted to
hear that she had gone.  For the matter of that, she would tell her--when
next they met.

Phillips must have seen her getting off the bus, for he came forward at
once from the other side of the gate, his face radiant with boyish
delight.  A young man and woman, entering the park at the same time,
looked at them and smiled sympathetically.

Joan had no idea the park contained such pleasant by-ways.  But for an
occasional perambulator they might have been in the heart of the country.
The fallow deer stole near to them with noiseless feet, regarding them
out of their large gentle eyes with looks of comradeship.  They paused
and listened while a missal thrush from a branch close to them poured out
his song of hope and courage.  From quite a long way off they could still
hear his clear voice singing, telling to the young and brave his gallant
message.  It seemed too beautiful a day for politics.  After all,
politics--one has them always with one; but the spring passes.

He saw her on to a bus at Kingston, and himself went back by train.  They
agreed they would not mention it to Mrs. Phillips.  Not that she would
have minded.  The danger was that she would want to come, too; honestly
thinking thereby to complete their happiness.  It seemed to be tacitly
understood there would be other such excursions.

The summer was propitious.  Phillips knew his London well, and how to get
away from it.  There were winding lanes in Hertfordshire, Surrey hills
and commons, deep, cool, bird-haunted woods in Buckingham.  Each week
there was something to look forward to, something to plan for and
manoeuvre.  The sense of adventure, a spice of danger, added zest.  She
still knocked frequently, as before, at the door of the
hideously-furnished little house in North Street; but Mrs. Phillips no
longer oppressed her as some old man of the sea she could never hope to
shake off from her shoulders.  The flabby, foolish face, robbed of its
terrors, became merely pitiful.  She found herself able to be quite
gentle and patient with Mrs. Phillips.  Even the sloppy kisses she came
to bear without a shudder down her spine.

"I know you are only doing it because you sympathize with his aims and
want him to win," acknowledged the good lady.  "But I can't help feeling
grateful to you.  I don't feel how useless I am while I've got you to run
to."

They still discussed their various plans for the amelioration and
improvement of humanity; but there seemed less need for haste than they
had thought.  The world, Joan discovered, was not so sad a place as she
had judged it.  There were chubby, rogue-eyed children; whistling lads
and smiling maidens; kindly men with ruddy faces; happy mothers crooning
over gurgling babies.  There was no call to be fretful and vehement.  They
would work together in patience and in confidence.  God's sun was
everywhere.  It needed only that dark places should be opened up and it
would enter.

Sometimes, seated on a lichened log, or on the short grass of some
sloping hillside, looking down upon some quiet valley, they would find
they had been holding hands while talking.  It was but as two happy,
thoughtless children might have done.  They would look at one another
with frank, clear eyes and smile.

Once, when their pathway led through a littered farm-yard, he had taken
her up in his arms and carried her and she had felt a glad pride in him
that he had borne her lightly as if she had been a child, looking up at
her and laughing.

An old bent man paused from his work and watched them.  "Lean more over
him, missie," he advised her.  "That's the way.  Many a mile I've carried
my lass like that, in flood time; and never felt her weight."

Often on returning home, not knowing why, she would look into the glass.
It seemed to her that the girlhood she had somehow missed was awakening
in her, taking possession of her, changing her.  The lips she had always
seen pressed close and firm were growing curved, leaving a little
parting, as though they were not quite so satisfied with one another.  The