ear it
still a little onward." Her small gloved hand closed on Joan's with a
pressure that made Joan wince.

"And you must not despair," she continued; "because in the end it will
seem to you that you have failed. It is the fallen that win the
victories."

She released Joan's hand abruptly. "Come and see me to-morrow morning at
my office," she said. "We will fix up something that shall be
serviceable to us both."

Madge flashed Joan a look. She considered Joan's position already
secured. Mrs. Denton was the doyen of women journalists. She edited a
monthly review and was leader writer of one of the most important
dailies, besides being the controlling spirit of various social
movements. Anyone she "took up" would be assured of steady work. The
pay might not be able to compete with the prices paid for more popular
journalism, but it would afford a foundation, and give to Joan that
opportunity for influence which was her main ambition.

Joan expressed her thanks. She would like to have had more talk with the
stern old lady, but was prevented by the entrance of two new comers. The
first was Miss Lavery, a handsome, loud-toned young woman. She ran a
nursing paper, but her chief interest was in the woman's suffrage
question, just then coming rapidly to the front. She had heard Joan
speak at Cambridge and was eager to secure her adherence, being wishful
to surround herself with a group of young and good-looking women who
should take the movement out of the hands of the "frumps," as she termed
them. Her doubt was whether Joan would prove sufficiently tractable. She
intended to offer her remunerative work upon the _Nursing News_ without
saying anything about the real motive behind, trusting to gratitude to
make her task the easier.

The second was a clumsy-looking, overdressed woman whom Miss Lavery
introduced as "Mrs. Phillips, a very dear friend of mine, who is going to
be helpful to us all," adding in a hurried aside to Madge, "I simply had
to bring her. Will explain to you another time." An apology certainly
seemed to be needed. The woman was absurdly out of her place. She stood
there panting and slightly perspiring. She was short and fat, with dyed
hair. As a girl she had possibly been pretty in a dimpled, giggling sort
of way. Joan judged her, in spite of her complexion, to be about forty.

Joan wondered if she could be the wife of the Member of Parliament who
occupied the rooms below her in Co