y been directed. Her meeting with Mrs. Phillips in
Madge's rooms; and that invitation to dinner, coinciding with that crisis
in his life. It was she who had persuaded him to accept. But for her he
would have doubted, wavered, let his opportunities slip by. He had
confessed it to her.

And she had promised him. He needed her. The words she had spoken to
Madge, not dreaming then of their swift application. They came back to
her. "God has called me. He girded His sword upon me." What right had
she to leave it rusting in its scabbard, turning aside from the pathway
pointed out to her because of one weak, useless life, crouching in her
way. It was not as if she were being asked to do evil herself that good
might come. The decision had been taken out of her hands. All she had
to do was to remain quiescent, not interfering, awaiting her orders. Her
business was with her own part, not with another's. To be willing to
sacrifice oneself: that was at the root of all service. Sometimes it was
one's own duty, sometimes that of another. Must one never go forward
because another steps out of one's way, voluntarily? Besides, she might
have been mistaken. That picture, ever before her, of the woman pausing
with the brush above her tongue--that little stilled gasp! It may have
been but a phantasm, born of her own fevered imagination. She clung to
that, desperately.

It was the task that had been entrusted to her. How could he hope to
succeed without her. With her, he would be all powerful--accomplish the
end for which he had been sent into the world. Society counts for so
much in England. What public man had ever won through without its
assistance. As Greyson had said: it is the dinner-table that rules. She
could win it over to his side. That mission to Paris that she had
undertaken for Mrs. Denton, that had brought her into contact with
diplomatists, politicians, the leaders and the rulers, the bearers of
names known and honoured in history. They had accepted her as one of
themselves. She had influenced them, swayed them. That afternoon at
Folk's studio, where all eyes had followed her, where famous men and
women had waited to attract her notice, had hung upon her words. Even at
school, at college, she had always commanded willing homage. As Greyson
had once told her, it was herself--her personality that was her greatest
asset. Was it to be utterly wasted? There were hundreds of impersonal,
sexless wo