"I am sorry," she said, "I have talked you into a mood of black depression; never mind, perhaps you will have learnt something from it none the less. And meanwhile, things are going to be better for you; it is no loss having to leave Shamrock House, otherwise you might grow into the house as I have. You will have to see about getting a room to-morrow, and then if you can meet me in the afternoon, I will take you and introduce you to your job. It is quite a nice one, I hope you will like it." Joan stood up. "I don't know what to say," she began; "you--oh, if only we could wipe out the past," she flamed into sudden rebellion, "and start afresh." Rose laughed. "I don't know about that," she said--the inevitable cigarette was in her mouth again--"_I_ for one would be very unwilling to lose a wisdom which has been so dearly bought." CHAPTER XV "No one has any more right to go about unhappy than he has to go about ill bred." R. L. STEVENSON. Joan was not to start her new work till the following Monday. She was to be typist--her first real post filled her with some degree of self-conscious pride--to the Editor of the _Evening Herald_. Rose had herself worked on the paper some years ago and was a friend of the Editor's. "I want you to give a girl I know a chance, Mr. Strangman," she had pleaded; "she is clever and well-educated, but she needs experience. Take her, there is a good man, while your slack time is on, and she will be game for anything when you get busy again." Mr. Strangman twisted long nervous fingers into strange positions. "I don't know about this girl," he said; "we are never slack at the office." It was a pet fallacy of his that he was the hardest-worked man in London. Rose smiled. "But her typing is quite good," she argued, "and you are such an easy dictator, I am sure she will get on all right." She had been exceptionally pleased when Mr. Strangman reluctantly gave way. Joan would, she hoped, take kindly to newspaper work, and it might open up new roads to her.