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.
Greyson was unable to accept the theory because of the fact that, in old age, the mind in common with the body is subject to decay.
“Perhaps by the time I am forty – or let us say fifty,” he argued, “I shall be a bright, intelligent being. If I die then, well and good. I select a likely baby and go straight on. But suppose I hang about till eighty and die a childish old gentleman with a mind all gone to seed. What am I going to do then? I shall have to begin all over again: perhaps worse off than I was before. That’s not going to help us much.”
Joan explained it to him: that old age might be likened to an illness. A genius lies upon a bed of sickness and babbles childish nonsense. But with returning life he regains his power, goes on increasing it. The mind, the soul, has not decayed. It is the lines of communication that old age has destroyed.
“But surely you don’t believe it?” he demanded.
“Why not?” laughed Joan. “All things are possible. It was the possession of a hand that transformed monkeys into men. We used to take things up, you know, and look at them, and wonder and wonder and wonder, till at last there was born a thought and the world became visible. It is curiosity that will lead us to the next great discovery. We must take things up; and think and think and think till one day there will come knowledge, and we shall see the universe.”
Joan always avoided getting excited when she thought of it.
“I love to make you excited,” Flossie had once confessed to her in the old student days. “You look so ridiculously young and you are so pleased with yourself, laying down the law.”
She did not know she had given way to it. He was leaning back in his chair, looking at her; and the tired look she had noticed in his eyes, when she had been introduced to him in the drawing-room, had gone out of them.
During the coffee, Mrs. Denton beckoned him to come to her; and Miss Greyson crossed over and took his vacant chair. She had been sitting opposite to them.
“I’ve been hearing so much about you,” she said. “I can’t help thinking that you ought to suit my brother’s paper. He has all your ideas. Have you anything that you could send him?”
Joan considered a moment.
“Nothing very startling,” she answered. “I was thinking of a series of articles on the old London Churches – touching upon the people connected with them and the things they stood for. I’ve just finished the first one.”
“It ought to be the very thing,” answered Miss Greyson. She was a thin, faded woman with a soft, plaintive voice. “It will enable him to judge your style. He’s particular about that. Though I’m confident he’ll like it,” she hastened to add. “Address it to me, will you. I assist him as much as I can.”
Joan added a few finishing touches that evening, and posted it; and a day or two later received a note asking her to call at the office.
“My sister is enthusiastic about your article on Chelsea Church and insists on my taking the whole series,” Greyson informed her. “She says you have the Stevensonian touch.”
Joan flushed with pleasure.
“And you,” she asked, “did you think it had the Stevensonian touch?”
“No,” he answered, “it seemed to me to have more of your touch.”
“What’s that like?” she demanded.
“They couldn’t suppress you,” he explained. “Sir Thomas More with his head under his arm, bloody old Bluebeard, grim Queen Bess, snarling old Swift, Pope, Addison, Carlyle – the whole grisly crowd of them! I could see you holding your own against them all, explaining things to them, getting excited.” He laughed.
His sister joined them, coming in from the next room. She had a proposal to make. It was that Joan should take over the weekly letter from “Clorinda.” It was supposed to give the views of a – perhaps unusually – sane and thoughtful woman upon the questions of the day. Miss Greyson had hitherto conducted it herself, but was wishful as she explained to be relieved of it; so that she might have more time for home affairs. It would necessitate Joan’s frequent attendance at the office; for there would be letters from the public to be answered, and points to be discussed with her brother. She was standing behind his chair with her hands upon his head. There was something strangely motherly about her whole attitude.
Greyson was surprised, for the Letter had been her own conception, and had grown into a popular feature. But she was evidently in earnest; and Joan accepted willingly. “Clorinda” grew younger, more self-assertive; on the whole more human. But still so eminently “sane” and reasonable.
“We must not forget that she is quite a respectable lady, connected – according to her own account – with the higher political circles,” Joan’s editor would insist, with a laugh.
Miss Greyson, working in the adjoining room, would raise her head and listen. She loved to hear him laugh.
“It’s absurd,” Flossie told her one morning, as having met by chance they were walking home together along the Embankment. “You’re not ‘Clorinda’; you ought to be writing letters to her, not from her, waking her up, telling her to come off her perch, and find out what the earth feels like. I’ll tell you what I’ll do: I’ll trot you round to Carleton. If you’re out for stirring up strife and contention, well, that’s his game, too. He’ll use you for his beastly sordid ends. He’d have roped in John the Baptist if he’d been running the ‘Jerusalem Star’ at the time, and have given him a daily column for so long as the boom lasted. What’s that matter, if he’s willing to give you a start?”
Joan jibbed at first. But in the end Flossie’s arguments prevailed. One afternoon, a week later, she was shown into Carleton’s private room, and the door closed behind her. The light was dim, and for a moment she could see no one; until Carleton, who had been standing near one of the windows, came forward and placed a chair for her. And they both sat down.
“I’ve glanced through some of your things,” he said. “They’re all right. They’re alive. What’s your idea?”
Remembering