er
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 t