She had just the head mistress expression. Joan wasn’t quite sure she oughtn’t to stand. But, controlling the instinct, leant back in her chair, and tried to look defiant without feeling it.
“How far are you going?” demanded Flossie.
Joan was not in a comprehending mood.
“If you’re going the whole hog, that’s something I can understand,” continued Flossie. “If not, you’d better pull up.”
“What do you mean by the whole hog?” requested Joan, assuming dignity.
“Oh, don’t come the kid,” advised Flossie. “If you don’t mind being talked about yourself, you might think of him. If Carleton gets hold of it, he’s done for.”
“‘A little bird whispers to me that Robert Phillips was seen walking across Richmond Park the other afternoon in company with Miss Joan Allway, formerly one of our contributors.’ Is that going to end his political career?” retorted Joan with fine sarcasm.
Flossie fixed a relentless eye upon her. “He’ll wait till the bird has got a bit more than that to whisper to him,” she suggested.
“There’ll be nothing more,” explained Joan. “So long as my friendship is of any assistance to Robert Phillips in his work, he’s going to have it. What use are we going to be in politics — what’s all the fuss about, if men and women mustn’t work together for their common aims and help one another?”
“Why can’t you help him in his own house, instead of wandering all about the country?” Flossie wanted to know.
“So I do,” Joan defended herself. “I’m in and out there till I’m sick of the hideous place. You haven’t seen the inside. And his wife knows all about it, and is only too glad.”
“Does she know about Richmond Park — and the other places?” asked Flossie.
“She wouldn’t mind if she did,” explained Joan. “And you know what she’s like! How can one think what one’s saying with that silly, goggle-eyed face in front of one always.”
Flossie, since she had become engaged, had acquired quite a matronly train of thought. She spoke kindly, with a little grave shake of her head. “My dear,” she said, “the wife is always in the way. You’d feel just the same whatever her face was like.”
Joan grew angry. “If you choose to suspect evil, of course you can,” she answered with hauteur. “But you might have known me better. I admire the man and sympathize with him. All the things I dream of are the things he is working for. I can do more good by helping and inspiring him”—she wished she had not let slip that word “inspire.” She knew that Flossie would fasten upon it—“than I can ever accomplish by myself. And I mean to do it.” She really did feel defiant, now.
“I know, dear,” agreed Flossie, “you’ve both of you made up your minds it shall always remain a beautiful union of twin spirits. Unfortunately you’ve both got bodies — rather attractive bodies.”
“We’ll keep it off that plane, if you don’t mind,” answered Joan with a touch of severity.
“I’m willing enough,” answered Flossie. “But what about Old Mother Nature? She’s going to be in this, you know.”
“Take off your glasses, and look at it straight,” she went on, without giving Joan time to reply. “What is it in us that ‘inspires’ men? If it’s only advice and sympathy he’s after, what’s wrong with dear old Mrs. Denton? She’s a good walker, except now and then, when she’s got the lumbago. Why doesn’t he get her to ‘inspire’ him?”
“It isn’t only that,” explained Joan. “I give him courage. I always did have more of that than is any use to a woman. He wants to be worthy of my belief in him. What is the harm if he does admire me — if a smile from me or a touch of the hand can urge him to fresh effort? Suppose he does love me—”
Flossie interrupted. “How about being quite frank?” she suggested. “Suppose we do love one another. How about putting it that way?”
“And suppose we do?” agreed Joan, her courage rising. “Why should we shun one another, as if we were both of us incapable of decency or self-control? Why must love be always assumed to make us weak and contemptible, as if it were some subtle poison? Why shouldn’t it strengthen and ennoble us?”
“Why did the apple fall?” answered Flossie. “Why, when it escapes from its bonds, doesn’t it soar upward? If it wasn’t for the irritating law of gravity, we could skip about on the brink of precipices without danger. Things being what they are, sensible people keep as far away from the edge as possible.”
“I’m sorry,” she continued; “awfully sorry, old girl. It’s a bit of rotten bad luck for both of you. You were just made for one another. And Fate, knowing what was coming, bustles round and gets hold of poor, silly Mrs. Phillips so as to be able to say ‘Yah.’”
“Unless it all comes right in the end,” she added musingly; “and the poor old soul pegs out. I wouldn’t give much for her liver.”
“That’s not bringing me up well,” suggested Joan: “putting those ideas into my head.”
“Oh, well, one can’t help one’s thoughts,” explained Flossie. “It would be a blessing all round.”
They had risen. Joan folded her hands. “Thank you for your scolding, ma’am,” she said. “Shall I write out a hundred lines of Greek? Or do you think it will be sufficient if I promise never to do it again?”
“You mean it?” said Flossie. “Of course you will go on seeing him — visiting them, and all that. But you won’t go gadding about, so that people can talk?”
“Only through the bars, in future,” she promised. “With the gaoler between us.” She put her arms round Flossie and bent her head, so that her face was hidden.
Flossie still seemed troubled. She held on to Joan.
“You are sure of yourself?” she asked. “We’re only the female of the species. We get hungry and thirsty, too. You know that, kiddy, don’t you?”
Joan laughed without raising her face. “Yes, ma’am, I know that,” she answered. “I’ll be good.”
She sat in the dusk after Flossie had gone; and the laboured breathing of the tired city came to her through the open window. She had rather fancied that martyr’s crown. It had not looked so very heavy, the thorns not so very alarming — as seen through the window. She would wear it bravely. It would rather become her.
Facing the mirror of the days to come, she tried it on. It was going to hurt. There was no doubt of that. She saw the fatuous, approving face of the eternal Mrs. Phillips, thrust ever between them, against the background of that hideous furniture, of those bilious wall papers — the loneliness that would ever walk with her, sit down beside her in the crowded restaurant, steal up the staircase with her, creep step by step with her from room to room — the ever unsatisfied yearning for a tender word, a kindly touch. Yes, it was going to hurt.
Poor Robert! It would be hard on him, too. She could not help feeling consolation in the thought that he also would be wearing that invisible crown.
She must write to him. The sooner it was done, the better. Half a dozen contradictory moods passed over her during the composing of that letter; but to her they seemed but the unfolding of a single thought. On one page it might have been his mother writing to him; an experienced, sagacious lady; quite aware, in spite of her affection for him, of his faults and weaknesses; solicitous that he should avoid the dangers of an embarrassing entanglement; his happiness being the only consideration of importance. On others it might have been a queen laying her immutable commands upon some loyal subject, sworn to her service. Part of it might have been written by a laughing philosopher who had learnt the folly of taking life too seriously, knowing that all things pass: that the tears of to-day will be remembered with a smile. And a part of it was the unconsidered language of a loving woman. And those were the pages that he kissed.