Mr. Paramor rose.

“I know,” he said—­“I know.  My dear friend, I know!” And for a full minute he remained motionless, a little turned from Gregory.  “It will be better,” he said suddenly, “for her to get rid of him.  I’ll go and see her myself.  We’ll spare her all we can.  I’ll go this afternoon, and let you know the result.”

As though by mutual instinct, they put out their hands, which they shook with averted faces.  Then Gregory, seizing his hat, strode out of the room.

He went straight to the rooms of his Society in Hanover Square.  They were on the top floor, higher than the rooms of any other Society in the building—­so high, in fact, that from their windows, which began five feet up, you could practically only see the sky.

A girl with sloping shoulders, red cheeks, and dark eyes, was working a typewriter in a corner, and sideways to the sky at a bureau littered with addressed envelopes, unanswered letters, and copies of the Society’s publications, was seated a grey-haired lady with a long, thin, weatherbeaten face and glowing eyes, who was frowning at a page of manuscript.

“Oh, Mr. Vigil,” she said, “I’m so glad you’ve come.  This paragraph mustn’t go as it is.  It will never do.”

Gregory took the manuscript and read the paragraph in question.

“This case of Eva Nevill is so horrible that we ask those of our women readers who live in the security, luxury perhaps, peace certainly, of their country homes, what they would have done, finding themselves suddenly in the position of this poor girl—­in a great city, without friends, without money, almost without clothes, and exposed to all the craft of one of those fiends in human form who prey upon our womankind.  Let each one ask herself:  Should I have resisted where she fell?”

“It will never do to send that out,” said the lady again.

“What is the matter with it, Mrs. Shortman?”

“It’s too personal.  Think of Lady Maiden, or most of our subscribers.  You can’t expect them to imagine themselves like poor Eva.  I’m sure they won’t like it.”

Gregory clutched at his hair.

“Is it possible they can’t stand that?” he said.

“It’s only because you’ve given such horrible details of poor Eva.”

Gregory got up and paced the room.

Mrs. Shortman went on

“You’ve not lived in the country for so long, Mr. Vigil, that you don’t remember.  You see, I know.  People don’t like to be harrowed.  Besides, think how difficult it is for them to imagine themselves in such a position.  It’ll only shock them, and do our circulation harm.”

Gregory snatched up the page and handed it to the girl who sat at the typewriter in the corner.

“Read that, please, Miss Mallow.”

The girl read without raising her eyes.

“Well, is it what Mrs. Shortman says?”

The girl handed it back with a blush.