Joan gave an inward sigh.  Hadn’t the poor lady any friends of her own.  “Oh, almost anything,” she answered vaguely:  “so long as it’s cheerful and non-political.  What used you to talk about before he became a great man?”

There came a wistful look into the worried eyes.  “Oh, it was all so different then,” she said. “’E just liked to—­you know.  We didn’t seem to ’ave to talk.  ’E was a rare one to tease.  I didn’t know ’ow clever ’e was, then.”

It seemed a difficult case to advise upon.  “How long have you been married?” Joan asked.

“Fifteen years,” she answered.  “I was a bit older than ’im.  But I’ve never looked my age, they tell me.  Lord, what a boy ’e was!  Swept you off your feet, like.  ’E wasn’t the only one.  I’d got a way with me, I suppose.  Anyhow, the men seemed to think so.  There was always a few ’anging about.  Like flies round a ’oney-pot, Mother used to say.”  She giggled.  “But ’e wouldn’t take No for an answer.  And I didn’t want to give it ’im, neither.  I was gone on ’im, right enough.  No use saying I wasn’t.”

“You must be glad you didn’t say No,” suggested Joan.

“Yes,” she answered, “’E’s got on.  I always think of that little poem, ‘Lord Burleigh,’” she continued; “whenever I get worrying about myself.  Ever read it?”

“Yes,” answered Joan.  “He was a landscape painter, wasn’t he?”

“That’s the one,” said Mrs. Phillips.  “I little thought I was letting myself in for being the wife of a big pot when Bob Phillips came along in ’is miner’s jacket.”

“You’ll soon get used to it,” Joan told her.  “The great thing is not to be afraid of one’s fate, whatever it is; but just to do one’s best.”  It was rather like talking to a child.

“You’re the right sort to put ’eart into a body.  I’m glad I came up,” said Mrs. Phillips.  “I get a bit down in the mouth sometimes when ’e goes off into one of ’is brown studies, and I don’t seem to know what ’e’s thinking about.  But it don’t last long.  I was always one of the light-’earted ones.”

They discussed life on two thousand a year; the problems it would present; and Mrs. Phillips became more cheerful.  Joan laid herself out to be friendly.  She hoped to establish an influence over Mrs. Phillips that should be for the poor lady’s good; and, as she felt instinctively, for poor Phillips’s also.  It was not an unpleasing face.  Underneath the paint, it was kind and womanly.  Joan was sure he would like it better clean.  A few months’ attention to diet would make a decent figure of her and improve her wind.  Joan watched her spreading the butter a quarter of an inch thick upon her toast and restrained with difficulty the impulse to take it away from her.  And her clothes!  Joan had seen guys carried through the streets on the fifth of November that were less obtrusive.

She remembered, as she was taking her leave, what she had come for:  which was to invite Joan to dinner on the following Friday.