“Yah, socialist,” commented Madge, who was busy with the tea things.

Flossie seemed struck by an idea.

“By Jove,” she exclaimed.  “Why did I never think of it.  With a red flag and my hair down, I’d be in all the illustrated papers.  It would put up my price no end.  And I’d be able to get out of this silly job of mine.  I can’t go on much longer.  I’m getting too well known.  I do believe I’ll try it.  The shouting’s easy enough.”  She turned to Joan.  “Are you going to take up socialism?” she demanded.

“I may,” answered Joan.  “Just to spank it, and put it down again.  I’m rather a believer in temptation—­the struggle for existence.  I only want to make it a finer existence, more worth the struggle, in which the best man shall rise to the top.  Your ’universal security’—­that will be the last act of the human drama, the cue for ringing down the curtain.”

“But do not all our Isms work towards that end?” suggested Madge.

Joan was about to reply when the maid’s announcement of “Mrs. Denton” postponed the discussion.

Mrs. Denton was a short, grey-haired lady.  Her large strong features must have made her, when she was young, a hard-looking woman; but time and sorrow had strangely softened them; while about the corners of the thin firm mouth lurked a suggestion of humour that possibly had not always been there.  Joan, waiting to be introduced, towered head and shoulders above her; yet when she took the small proffered hand and felt those steely blue eyes surveying her, she had the sensation of being quite insignificant.  Mrs. Denton seemed to be reading her, and then still retaining Joan’s hand she turned to Madge with a smile.

“So this is our new recruit,” she said.  “She is come to bring healing to the sad, sick world—­to right all the old, old wrongs.”

She patted Joan’s hand and spoke gravely.  “That is right, dear.  That is youth’s metier; to take the banner from our failing hands, bear 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.