“I am only at the end of a journey when you need me,” he had answered, and they had kissed.  And next morning she returned to her own life.

CHAPTER III

It was at Madge Singleton’s rooms that the details of Joan’s entry into journalistic London were arranged.  “The Coming of Beauty,” was Flora Lessing’s phrase for designating the event.  Flora Lessing, known among her associates as “Flossie,” was the girl who at Cambridge had accidentally stumbled upon the explanation of Joan’s influence.  In appearance she was of the Fluffy Ruffles type, with childish innocent eyes, and the “unruly curls” beloved of the Family Herald novelist.  At the first, these latter had been the result of a habit of late rising and consequent hurried toilet operations; but on the discovery that for the purposes of her profession they possessed a market value they had been sedulously cultivated.  Editors of the old order had ridiculed the idea of her being of any use to them, when two years previously she had, by combination of cheek and patience, forced herself into their sanctum; had patted her paternally upon her generally ungloved hand, and told her to go back home and get some honest, worthy young man to love and cherish her.

It was Carleton of the Daily Dispatch group who had first divined her possibilities.  With a swift glance on his way through, he had picked her out from a line of depressed-looking men and women ranged against the wall of the dark entrance passage; and with a snap of his fingers had beckoned to her to follow him.  Striding in front of her up to his room, he had pointed to a chair and had left her sitting there for three-quarters of an hour, while he held discussion with a stream of subordinates, managers and editors of departments, who entered and departed one after another, evidently in pre-arranged order.  All of them spoke rapidly, without ever digressing by a single word from the point, giving her the impression of their speeches having been rehearsed beforehand.

Carleton himself never interrupted them.  Indeed, one might have thought he was not listening, so engrossed he appeared to be in the pile of letters and telegrams that lay waiting for him on his desk.  When they had finished he would ask them questions, still with his attention fixed apparently upon the paper in his hand.  Then, looking up for the first time, he would run off curt instructions, much in the tone of a Commander-in-Chief giving orders for an immediate assault; and, finishing abruptly, return to his correspondence.  When the last, as it transpired, had closed the door behind him, he swung his chair round and faced her.

“What have you been doing?” he asked her.

“Wasting my time and money hanging about newspaper offices, listening to silly talk from old fossils,” she told him.

“And having learned that respectable journalism has no use for brains, you come to me,” he answered her.  “What do you think you can do?”