Through Miss Lavery she obtained an introduction to the great Sir William.  He owned a group of popular provincial newspapers, and was most encouraging.  Sir William had often said to himself: 

“What can I do for God who has done so much for me?” It seemed only fair.

He asked her down to his “little place in Hampshire,” to talk plans over.  The “little place,” it turned out, ran to forty bedrooms, and was surrounded by three hundred acres of park.  God had evidently done his bit quite handsomely.

It was in a secluded corner of the park that Sir William had gone down upon one knee and gallantly kissed her hand.  His idea was that if she could regard herself as his “Dear Lady,” and allow him the honour and privilege of being her “True Knight,” that, between them, they might accomplish something really useful.  There had been some difficulty about his getting up again, Sir William being an elderly gentleman subject to rheumatism, and Joan had had to expend no small amount of muscular effort in assisting him; so that the episode which should have been symbolical ended by leaving them both red and breathless.

He referred to the matter again the same evening in the library while Lady William slept peacefully in the blue drawing-room; but as it appeared necessary that the compact should be sealed by a knightly kiss Joan had failed to ratify it.

She blamed herself on her way home.  The poor old gentleman could easily have been kept in his place.  The suffering of an occasional harmless caress would have purchased for her power and opportunity.  Had it not been somewhat selfish of her?  Should she write to him—­see him again?

She knew that she never would.  It was something apart from her reason.  It would not even listen to her.  It bade or forbade as if one were a child without any right to a will of one’s own.  It was decidedly exasperating.

There were others.  There were the editors who frankly told her that the business of a newspaper was to write what its customers wanted to read; and that the public, so far as they could judge, was just about fed up with plans for New Jerusalems at their expense.  And the editors who were prepared to take up any number of reforms, insisting only that they should be new and original and promise popularity.

And then she met Greyson.

It was at a lunch given by Mrs. Denton.  Greyson was a bachelor and lived with an unmarried sister, a few years older than himself.  He was editor and part proprietor of an evening paper.  It had ideals and was, in consequence, regarded by the general public with suspicion; but by reason of sincerity and braininess was rapidly becoming a power.  He was a shy, reserved man with an aristocratic head set upon stooping shoulders.  The face was that of a dreamer, but about the mouth there was suggestion of the fighter.  Joan felt at her ease with him in spite of the air of detachment that seemed part of his character.  Mrs. Denton had paired them off together; and, during the lunch, one of them—­Joan could not remember which—­had introduced the subject of reincarnation.