hat he
must do came to him.

For he had not beaten Baxter; he had only beaten the girl. Baxter
still stood where he was. Baxter still represented the way out for
Joan. As a rival--man to man--he failed to count; he might just as
well have been Jones or Smith. But as a weapon against the order of
things Baxter remained where he was--the winner.

And even as he cursed that order of things, it struck him with a sort
of amazed surprise that here he himself was actually up against one of
Ramage's vested interests. . . . If Blandford had been nationalised,
the problem would have been so easy. . . .

He moved irritably in his chair. What a muddle the whole thing
was--what a muddle. And then with the touch of a woman he bent over
the sleeping girl, and wiped away two tears that were glistening on her
eyelashes. Poor little girl--poor little Joan. . . .

A sense of overwhelming pity and love for her drowned every other
thought. Right or wrong, she was doing what she believed to be her
job; and now he had come and made things a thousand times harder for
her.

Very gently he withdrew his hand from hers and rose from his chair. He
made up the fire again, and then started to pace slowly up and down the
room. The drifting period was over; the matter had to be settled now.

He was no fool, and incidentally he knew as much about women as a man
may know. He realised exactly why she had come to him that night; as
clearly as if she had told him he understood the wild seething thoughts
in her mind, the chaos, the sense of futility. And then the sudden
irresistible longing to get things settled--to give up fighting--to
take hold of happiness or what seemed to her to be happiness at the
moment.

And supposing the mood had not broken--supposing the tears had not
come. . . . He stopped in his slow walk, and stared at the sleeping
girl thoughtfully. . . . What would have been the state of affairs by
now?

"Sex--sex--sex. The most powerful thing in the world, and the most
transitory." Her words before dinner, as they had stood in the hall
came back to him, and he took a deep breath. That was the weapon he
was using against her; he made no attempt to deceive himself on that
score. After all--why not? It was the weapon that had been used since
the beginning of things; it was the weapon which would continue to be
used till the end. It was Nature's weapon . . . and yet. . . .

Once again he resumed his walk--six ste