E.M. DELAFIELD (continued 3)

Pulling on her thick uniform coat, she went out, and slowly crossed the street.

She was thinking of Lady Vivian, who had roused in her an enthusiasm which she could never feel for Char, and who had talked to her so frankly and warmly, as though to a contemporary, that afternoon in the garden at Plessing. For all her quality of matter-of-factness, there was a certain humble-mindedness about Miss Jones, which made it a matter of surprise to her when she found herself on the borders of friendship with the woman whom she thought so courageous and so lovable.

She hoped that Miss Vivian would require her to go out to Plessing every day for a long while; then reflected that the privilege rightly belonged to Miss Delmege, who would certainly avail herself of it at the earliest possible moment.

She knew, and calmly accepted, that Miss Delmege's services would certainly be preferred to her own by the Director of the Midland Supply Depôt; but she did not think that Lady Vivian proffered her liking or her confidence lightly, and felt a certain placid security that their unofficial intercourse would somehow or other continue. Then, with characteristic thoroughness, she dismissed the question from her mind and went into the office and to her work.

That evening Grace went to the Canteen. Only Miss Marsh, Miss Anthony, and Miss Henderson accompanied her.

"We shall have to work like blacks to make up for the absentees," groaned Tony.

"Never mind; it isn't quite so cold tonight. Isn't the moon nice?"

"Lovely. Just the night for Zeppelins."

Miss Henderson spoke from the pessimism of approaching influenza, but it happened that she was right. The first air raid over Questerham took place that night.

The work was rapidly lessening towards eleven o'clock, when Captain Trevellyan came into the hall. He stood for an instant gazing round him reflectively, then said to Grace: "Who is in command here?"

"Mrs. Willoughby, when Miss Vivian isn't here."

"I see, thank you."

Looking very doubtful, he sought Lesbia, who was preparing to discard her overall and to take her departure with the Pekinese.

"Johnnie! How too sweet of you to turn up just in time to see me home! My Lewis hates my going back alone in the dark; we've very nearly quarrelled over it already."

"The fact is," said Trevellyan, wondering if Mrs. Willoughby were the sort of person to have hysterics, "that there's been a telephone warning to say an air-raid is on, just over Staningham. They're heading this way, so we may hear a gun or two, you know; some of our machines are in pursuit."

He gazed anxiously at Lesbia, whom he characteristically supposed to be about either to burst into tears or to threaten a fainting fit.

The ideas of Captain Trevellyan were perhaps not much more advanced than those of Lady Vivian's secretary.

But Mrs. Willoughby discounted his solicitude, at least on one score, in a moment.

"Zepps!" she screamed excitedly. "How too thrilling! Can I possibly get on to the roof, I wonder? I've never seen one yet."

"Stop!" said the astonished Trevellyan. "You don't realize. They'll be over here in a few minutes, and our machines may be firing at them, besides the guns on the hill; there'll be shrapnel falling."

Mrs. Willoughby tore off her overall and snatched up Puff.

"I must, must see it all!" she declared wildly. "Have you got a pair of field-glasses?"

Trevellyan restrained her forcibly from dashing to the door.

"Mrs. Willoughby, we've got to consider that there are a number of people here, and that they are all in a certain amount of danger—not so much from bombs, though goodness knows they may very well drop one, but from our own shrapnel. Is there a basement?"

"You can't send us to the cellar? My dear boy, I, for one, refuse to go. We're not children, and we're not afraid. We're Englishwomen!"

On this superb sentiment Mrs. Willoughby swept into the middle of the hall and announced in penetrating accents that a Zepp raid was on, and had any one got a pair of field-glasses?

There was a momentary outbreak of exclamations all around, and then Captain Trevellyan raised his voice: "Please keep away from the windows. There may be broken glass about."

"Is it dangerous? What are we to do?" gasped Tony, next him. She was rather white.

At the same moment the very distant but unmistakable reverberation of guns became audible.

Trevellyan took instant advantage of the sudden cessation of sound in the room.

"If there is a basement, it would be as well for everybody to go down there, please—just for precaution's sake. And then I'm going to put out these lights." His hand was on the nearest gas-jet as he spoke.

"Nothing will induce me to stir while there's any danger. I can answer for every woman here!" cried Lesbia, with a gesture of noble defiance.

Grace Jones came into the middle of the room.

"Hadn't we better obey orders?" she asked gently. "There is a basement beyond the kitchen."

She held out her hand to Miss Anthony, and they went through the door into the kitchen.

After an instant's hesitation, the other women followed. Trevellyan saw that they had lit a candle, and in a moment he heard them beginning to talk quietly amongst themselves.

A few soldiers in the hall had congregated together, and were talking and laughing. The others made a dash for the door as the firing grew louder, and simultaneously exclaimed: "Here they are!"

The sound of the huge machines far overhead was unmistakable. They could see the shrapnel bursting, and the guns on the hill boomed heavily and intermittently.

"Look!" shrieked Lesbia, almost hurling herself out of the door. "They've got one of them! I can see it blazing!"

Far away, a red spot began to glow, then suddenly revealed the cigar-shaped form in flames, dropping downwards.

"They've got it!" echoed Trevellyan. "Look! it's coming down. Miles away, by this time. I wonder how many of ours are giving chase."

The air was full of whirring, buzzing wings, and very far away a red light in the sky seemed to tell of fire.

Occasional sparks and flashes told of the bursting of shrapnel, but the sounds were dying away rapidly.

"It's over, and, by Jove, we've got him!" shouted Trevellyan, dashing back into the kitchen. Every one was talking at once, Mrs. Willoughby's voice dominating the rest.

"I saw the whole thing too perfectly! At least five of the brutes, and two, if not three, of them in flames! I saw them with my own eyes!" she proclaimed, with more spirit than exactitude. "And where are those poor creatures hiding like rats in the cellar?"

"The noise was awful!" said Tony, shuddering. "It felt as though it were right over our heads. But," she added valiantly, "I do wish we'd seen it all!"

Trevellyan turned to her apologetically. "I'm so sorry. But I really couldn't help it. They sent me down on purpose to see that this place was warned. It was really perfectly splendid of you to go down like that and miss all the fun."

"I was very frightened," she told him honestly, "though I do awfully wish I'd seen it. They must have had a splendid view from the Hostel at the top of the street."

"There was a splendid view from here," said Lesbia cuttingly. "I saw everything there was to be seen."

Trevellyan was looking for Miss Jones.

"Thank you so much for giving them the lead you did," he said to her gratefully. "It was very good of you. I felt such a brute for asking you to do it; but there really is danger, you know, especially from the windows, if shrapnel shatters the glass."

"Oh yes, I know. I wonder," said Grace thoughtfully, "whether they heard it much at Plessing."

"I know. I was thinking of that all the time. Not that she'd be nervous, you know, except on his account."

"It would be dreadful for Sir Piers. Oh, I do hope they didn't hear much of it," said Grace.

One of the men approached her. "If you please, Sister, could you come down into the kitching 'alf a minute?"

Grace went.

Trevellyan watched them all disperse, and escorted Mrs. Willoughby to her tram, wondering if he ought not to see her home.

But Lesbia refused all escort, declaring gallantly that she did not know the meaning of fear, and, anyway, Puffles would protect his missus from any more dreadful, wicked Zepps.

He left her entertaining her tram conductress with a spirited account of all that she had seen, and much that she had not seen, of the raid.

As he turned down Pollard Street again, a soldier with his hand bound up lurched out of the open door of the deserted Canteen.

"Is there any one in there to shut the place up?" Trevellyan asked him.

"One of the ladies is still in there, sir. Beg pardon, sir; she's a bit upset like."

Trevellyan thought of little Miss Anthony, who had owned, with a white face, how much the sound of the guns had frightened her.

He went into the hall. It was dark, but there was a light in the kitchen.

"Who's there?" said John.

"I am. It's all right," replied an enfeebled voice; and he went into the kitchen.

Grace Jones was half leaning and half sitting against the sink, her small face haggard, her hands clutching the only support within reach, the wooden top of a roller-towel.

"I'm afraid you're ill," exclaimed Trevellyan, looking desperately round him for a chair.

"It's all right; please don't wait."

"But it's over now. They brought the brute down. It's miles away by this time."

He multiplied his reassurances.

"No, no; it's not that," gasped Miss Jones, looking whiter than ever.

"There were certainly no casualties over here. We should have seen signs of fire somewhere if they'd dropped a bomb."

"It's not that!" Grace told him desperately.

Trevellyan gazed at her helplessly, and repeated in an obtuse manner: "It's all over now—absolutely safe."

Grace gazed back at him with a wan smile.

"Would you mind going?" she asked him feebly. "I shall be all right in a minute. It's very tiresome, but the sight of—of blood always upsets me like this, and that man had cut his finger rather badly, and I had to do it up. It's only—that."

She put her hands up to her damp forehead as though the effort of speech had brought back the sensation of nausea.

"You're going to faint!" exclaimed Trevellyan. "Let me get some water for you."

"No, I'm not. Oh, do go!"

"I can't leave you like this," protested the bewildered John.

Grace staggered to her feet, and stood holding on to the edge of the sink.

"I'm afraid—I'm only going to be sick," she said with difficulty.

Ten minutes later they locked up the Canteen and went up Pollard Street.

"You see, it had nothing to do with the raid," Grace told him gently. "It was just that poor man bleeding. I've always been like that; it's the only way I'm delicate, because I'm never ill, and I don't ever have nerves. But it is very tiresome. That's why I couldn't go and work in a hospital. I did clerical work in the hospital at home for a little while, but it wasn't any good."

"Bad luck!"

"It is, rather. I hate anybody's knowing about it; that's why I said I'd stay behind and lock up. I knew it was going to happen, and I didn't want any one to be there."

"I'm sorry. I thought it was the raid that had upset you, and that you might be going to faint."

"Nothing so romantic," said Miss Jones regretfully.

But her regrets were as nothing to those of the Hostel when they learnt what had happened.

It was impossible to conceal it from them, since the window of the ground-floor bedroom had been open, and Mrs. Potter and Miss Marsh, leaning from it, and listening eagerly, had heard every word of Captain Trevellyan's final discourse to Miss Jones, and her repeated assurances of being now completely restored.

They flew into the hall to meet her.

"Gracie dear, what has happened to you? Tony was in such a state when she found you hadn't come in with her and the others."

"Was it that beastly raid upset you?"

Grace once more repudiated the raid with as much energy as she could muster.

"You look as white as a sheet, dear! Come into the sitting-room."

Every one was in the sitting-room, including those first back from the Canteen, and the pseudo-invalids who, having been in bed when the raid began, felt that only tea could enable them to face the night, and had hurried down in search of it.

"Oh, Gracie, there you are! I was just going back to see what had become of you," said Tony.

"Miss Vivian's cousin brought her home!" giggled Mrs. Potter. "You know, the Staff Officer one. She's been awfully upset, poor Grace! Turned quite faint, didn't you, dear?"

"But you were so brave!" cried Tony, aghast. "You were all right all the time the raid was on. You didn't mind a bit!"

"Came over you afterwards, I expect, didn't it?" said Miss Delmege kindly. "It's often the case. I'm always perfectly cool myself when anything happens—I was tonight—but I generally suffer for it afterwards. Reaction, I suppose. When I came downstairs after it was all over I was simply shaking, wasn't I, Mrs. Bullivant?"

"Now, it's a funny thing," remarked Miss Henderson, without giving any one time to dwell upon Miss Delmege's personal reminiscences—"it's a funny thing, but I simply didn't feel the least bit of fear. Not for myself, you know. I just thought, well, I hope mother doesn't see any of this—she's got a bit of a heart, you know—but I didn't seem to feel a bit as though I was in any kind of danger myself. Not a bit."

"Now, just sit down, child, and drink up this tea," said Mrs. Bullivant to Grace. "You've not a scrap of colour in your face."

"I'm really all right now, thank you very much," Grace told her as she took the tea gratefully. "And it wasn't anything to do with the raid."

Everybody looked rather disappointed.

"Aren't you well, then, dear? I do hope it isn't another case of influenza."

"I bet I know!" suddenly cried Tony. "It was doing up that man's hand upset you, wasn't it? He cut himself somehow in the excitement and was bleeding like a fountain, poor fellow! I thought you looked rather squeamish while you were doing it, poor thing! but I never thought of its bowling you over like this. Are you one of those people who faint at the sight of blood?"

"I didn't faint," said Grace mildly.

"Jolly near it, I expect, judging by your face now," said Tony critically. "Poor old dear!"

"Did Miss Vivian's cousin come back to find you?" asked Miss Delmege sharply.

"He came into the kitchen while I was still there, and afterwards he helped me to lock up."

"Afterwards?"

A tinge of colour crept into Miss Jones's face.

"I'm afraid you won't think I rose to the occasion at all," she said deprecatingly. "It always does make me rather ill to see blood, though I know it's idiotic, and it was the soldier's hand, not the air-raid a bit, I didn't mind that at all."

"What happened? Were you hysterical?" demanded Miss Delmege, with an inexplicable touch of umbrage in her refined little voice.

"Certainly not," said Grace emphatically. "If you really want to know, I was just sick over the sink."

Miss Jones's damaging revelation horrified the Hostel, no less than the crude manner of its avowal.

"Well," said Miss Henderson, "you really are the limit, Gracie—and a bit over."

"Poor child!" said Mrs. Bullivant kindly. "How dreadful for you! Miss Vivian's cousin and all, too! But, still, it was better than an absolute stranger, perhaps."

"I don't see how you're ever going to face him again, though—really I don't," giggled Tony.

"Poor man! so awful for him, too," minced Miss Delmege. "He must have been too uncomfortable for words."

"Not he," Miss Marsh told her with sudden defiance. "He brought poor Gracie home, and delighted to have the chance. Come on, Gracie, let's go to bed. You look done for."

She had grown very fond of her room-mate, in spite of all that she regretfully looked upon as an absence of propriety in her conduct; and when they were outside the sitting-room door, she said, without troubling to lower her voice: "Don't you mind their nonsense, dear. You couldn't help it, and that Delmege has only got the pip because she hadn't the chance of being brought home by Miss Vivian's cousin herself."

And when they got upstairs she "turned down" Gracie's bed for her, and put her kettle on to the gas-ring, and brought her an extra hot-water bottle.

"There! Good-night, dear, and don't you worry. I think it was splendid of you to tell the truth. Lots of girls would have fibbed, and said they'd fainted, or something highfaluting of that nature. I should myself."

"Thank you so much. You are nice to me," said Grace warmly. She did not look upon the affair herself as being more than a merely unfortunate incident, but she knew that Miss Marsh regarded it as an overwhelming scandal, and was proffering consolation accordingly.

Miss Marsh bent over the bed and tucked her in. "I'll turn out the gas, and you must go straight to sleep. It's frightfully late. And look here, Gracie, when we're alone together up here, I'd like you to call me Dora, if you will. It's my name, you know."

X

"That settles it," said Char. "If this sort of thing is going to happen, I must be there. With no definite organization, there might be a panic next time an air-raid takes place. According to Mrs. Willoughby, every one made a dash for the basement, as it was. Women are such fools when one leaves them to themselves!"

It was part of Char's policy always to disparage her own sex. It threw into greater relief the contrast which she knew to exist between herself and the majority of women-workers.

She was speaking to Miss Bruce, but, rather to her annoyance, Lady Vivian came into the room in time to overhear her.

"Surely the basement was the most sensible place to dash for?" she inquired, never able to resist an opportunity of attacking her offspring's arrogantly expressed opinions. "As for your being there, in my opinion, it's a very good thing you weren't. You'd only have drilled the poor things out of their senses, which would have taken up more valuable space in the basement."

"I should not have been in the basement," returned Char superbly.

"Then you might have been blown into bits, my dear, unless, as Director of the Midland Supply Depôt, all enemy aircraft has orders to respect your person?"

Joanna was jeering quite good-humouredly, as she generally did, and even Miss Bruce saw some exaggeration in the white, tense silence with which Char received these indifferent pleasantries.

"I hear the car," said the secretary, anxious to create a diversion.

"Miss Jones. Mother, I'm going through the work with her in here this morning. There's no fire in the morning-room."

"Very well, Char. You won't disturb me in the least."

"I thought you were going to sit with father."

"Not yet. Besides, I want to see Miss Jones."

Char sighed patiently. At Plessing only the faithful Miss Bruce gave her work that consideration to which she had become accustomed at the office. She was finding Plessing almost intolerable. There were no interviews, the telephone-bell was not allowed to ring, no one urged her not to neglect the substantial meals which were served for her with the greatest regularity, and Miss Jones daily assured her, with perfect placidity, that the whole work at the office was progressing with complete success without her.

The Director of the Midland Supply Depôt was completely shorn of her glory.

And what was she doing, Char indignantly asked herself, while the organization which she had practically made was thus abandoned to its own resources?

Nothing.

She paid a purely perfunctory visit, morning and evening, to Sir Piers, who hardly ever heard what she said to him, and had the rest of the day at her own disposal. She had no share in the work of nursing, which was divided between Lady Vivian and the professional nurse who had come from London, and when she rather indignantly demanded of Dr. Prince whether he did not think that he had better utilize her hospital experience at Plessing, the doctor merely replied dryly: "Hospital experience, as you call it, acquired on paper only, won't help you much here, or anybody else either. Nurse Williams can do all that's necessary, and Sir Piers doesn't want any one but Lady Vivian when he's awake."

"That's perfectly true," said Char sharply, "and that's why I can't help thinking it's rather waste of time for an able-bodied woman with a certain amount of brains to remain here unoccupied when there is so much to be done elsewhere."

"You can take your mother for a walk every day. She is wise enough to take an hour's exercise every afternoon, and Miss Bruce can't be much of a companion. Besides," maliciously added the doctor, who had suffered considerably under the Central Depôt's arbitrary interference with his Hospital work, "it'll do you a lot of good to keep quiet for six months or so. You've been suffering from overstrain, whether you know it or not, and your work will be all the better for some relaxation. I assure you, we haven't had a wrong enclosure sent us from the office since you left."

Dr. Prince walked off very triumphantly after this parting gibe.

"Serve her right!" he thought to himself. "Conceited monkey! Perhaps I shall get station transport for my cases properly put through now, without her interference. Hospital experience, indeed!"

"Of course," said Char to Miss Bruce, "a country doctor is naturally jealous of the R.A.M.C. men who've come to the fore. He's never forgiven me for getting his Hospital run on a proper military basis."

"I'm sure he really admires your splendid work, dear, as anybody must, but he's known you ever since you were tiny, so I suppose he allows himself a certain amount of freedom."

Char supposed so too, sombrely enough, and prepared herself to extract from Miss Jones an account of panic at the Canteen on the occasion of the air-raid which should justify her in returning to her post, even in the eyes of Dr. Prince.

Needless to say, Miss Jones was unsatisfactory.

"Oh no; there wasn't any sort of panic at all. Captain Trevellyan was there, and asked us to go to the basement, and we just went."

"John tells me that they were perfectly splendid, all of them, and that you set the first example," said Joanna cordially.

"The whole thing didn't last ten minutes," Grace told them. "We heard all the noise, but didn't see anything. The men did, of course. They saw the Zeppelin come down in the far distance. But by the time we came out there was nothing. It was all over."

"What a shame!" exclaimed Joanna.

"I must institute a proper drill for air-raid alarms," said Char, unsmiling. "That sort of haphazard sauve qui peut is most unofficial. I shall see about it directly I get back."

Joanna put up her lorgnon and looked at her daughter.

She did not speak, but something in her expression made Char exclaim very decisively: "I can't desert my post at a time like this. Everybody must see that unless I had any extremely definite call elsewhere, my place is at the Depôt. The work is suffering horribly from this piecemeal fashion of doing things."

She indicated Grace and her sheaf of bulging envelopes with a gesture of condemnation.

Lady Vivian glanced from her daughter's set face to Grace Jones, whose eyes were cast down. Then she left the room without speaking.

Char looked at her secretary, and said, very slowly and stiffly: "I shall probably be back at the office tomorrow or Monday, Miss Jones. You may tell the staff. Sir Piers's condition is not likely to alter at present, and, in any case, the work comes before any personal considerations at a time like this."

There was silence.

"Miss Jones!" said Char sharply.

Miss Jones lifted her great grey eyes and looked straight at the Director of the Midland Supply Depôt.

She was not at all an eloquent person, but perceptions much less acute than those of Char Vivian could have felt the intense, almost violent hostility with which the atmosphere vibrated.

Then Grace dropped her eyes and said gently and coldly, in a tone as remote as it was impersonal: "Yes, Miss Vivian."

The encounter had been a wordless one, and, indeed, Char knew that she would never have allowed it to become anything else. The relative positions of the Director of the Midland Supply Depôt and one of her staff were far too clearly defined in her mind for that. But it left in her a sort of cold, still anger, as well as an invincible determination.

That night Trevellyan dined at Plessing.

Lady Vivian did not come downstairs until dinner was over and they were in the drawing-room. Then she took out some needlework. Sir Piers had always liked to see her pretty hands working at what he generically called "embroidery."

She sat down under the big standard lamp.

Disquiet was in the air, and Char knew that only the unperceptive Trevellyan was unaware of an impending crisis. Miss Bruce fidgeted with the fire-irons, dropped them, and apologized. As though a spell had been broken, Joanna looked up and spoke.

"Char, I don't know if you realize that there can be no question of your returning to the office tomorrow—or at all, for the present."

The attack had opened.

Char was glad of it, although a flare of resentment passed through her mind that her mother should have sought a cowardly protection from a possible scene in the presence of John Trevellyan.

"Why not?" she added quietly. "My father is no worse?"

"He is exactly the same. But I am not going to risk any shock or vexation to him. He asked me this afternoon if you were at home, and was glad when I said yes. You know he never liked your doing this excessive amount of work."

"He never forbade it."

"He is not likely to forbid it. When has he ever forbidden you anything? But he thinks that your place now is at home—which it very obviously is."

"To do what?" asked Char, with rising bitterness, which she did not try to keep out of her voice. "Does he ever ask for me? Am I of the slightest use?"

"He sees you every day, and he might ask for you at any time. He wishes you to remain at home for the present."

"It's not fair, it's not reasonable. I do nothing here. I am of no use. It's not as though he really wanted me. It's simply because you—and he—won't be reminded of the war—of the ghastly horrors going on all round us—won't think of the war, or let it be mentioned. You want to shirk it all—"

"Don't, Char!" said John suddenly. "Don't say things you'll be sorry for afterwards."

"No. I shall not be sorry for speaking the truth. You know it's true, Johnnie."

"True!" said Joanna. "What if it is true? Do you suppose that if I can give him one little hour's comfort by ignoring the war, and keeping every thought of it away from him, I wouldn't do so at any cost? The war isn't your responsibility or mine—your father is."

She rose, and paced rapidly up and down the length of the room. Char had never seen her mother give way to such impetuous agitation before. She eyed her coldly, but strove to speak gently.

"Mother, if it was anything else I'd give in. But I am doing work in Questerham—real, absolutely necessary work—and here—why, I'm not even justifying my existence."

"You're working here. You do a lot every day, going through all those letters and things with Miss Jones," Trevellyan pointed out.

Joanna threw him a quick glance of gratitude.

"Work here, Char, as much as you like," she exclaimed eagerly. "You can have any one you please out here—so long as they don't make a noise," she added hastily.

The expression was infelicitous.

"You talk as though I were a child, and wanted to have other children out here to play with me. Good heavens, mother! I do you realize that my work is for the nation, neither more nor less?"

"If I don't, it's not for want of being told," said her mother with sudden dryness.

"It's easy to say that sort of thing, to accuse me of self-complacency in the tiny little part I contribute to an enormous whole."

"It's not that, Char!" cried Joanna hastily. "I don't care if you have megalomania in its acutest form"—Miss Bruce bounded irrepressibly on her chair—"but I will not have your father distressed. That's my one and only concern. Johnnie, help me to make her understand."

"I do understand, mother," said Char. "You would sacrifice everything to the personal question—women always do. But I can't see it like that. The broader issue lies there, under my very eyes, and I can't shirk it."

"Johnnie!" said Joanna despairingly. "Tell her that she's blinding herself."

"Can't you give it up, Char?" he asked her gently. "You can do work here, you know, and let some one else carry on at Questerham."

"Yes, yes, a deputy. Some one who'll be under your orders," breathed Miss Bruce eagerly.

She cordially wished her contribution to the discussion unuttered, however, when it evoked from Johnnie the inspired suggestion: "Miss Jones! Make her your deputy, Char, and the whole thing will go like a house on fire."

Joanna, still pacing the room, gave a quick, short laugh, which made Trevellyan look at her in wondering surprise, and Char in sudden anger.

"May I suggest—" Miss Bruce began timidly, and paused.

"Anything!" said Joanna brusquely.

"Couldn't Dr. Prince tell us whether there is any reason—anything to fear—any danger," faltered Miss Bruce, becoming terribly involved.

Trevellyan came to her rescue.

"You mean whether there is likely to be any immediate change, for worse or for better, in Sir Piers's condition?"

"Of course I couldn't go if my father was in immediate danger," quoth Char impatiently. "But he's not. We've already been told so. He may go on in this state for months and months. And at the end of a telephone! Why, I could be sent for and be back here within an hour."

"I'm not discussing the question from that point of view at all," Joanna told her. "The point is not that you should be at hand in case of any crisis, but simply that he should not be vexed. Your insensate hours of work at the Depôt vex him."

The words sounded oddly trivial, but no one doubted that Joanna was angry, angrier than they had, any of them, ever seen her.

"Look here, Cousin Joanna, can't we settle this later on? There can be no need to arrange it tonight," said John. "Suppose we let the Doctor give the casting vote, as Miss Bruce suggested?"

He felt pretty sure that no vote of Dr. Prince's would ever be exercised in favour of Char's immediate return to the Midland Supply Depôt.

"Dr. Prince is coming here tonight," said Lady Vivian. "He ought to be here any minute now, if it's after nine."

"Ten past," said Miss Bruce, glancing at the clock.

"Neither he nor any one else can convince me that I ought to remain in idleness when every worker in England is needed," said Char.

"My dear Char, you can't run any risks with Sir Piers in his present condition," said John unexpectedly. "That's what we want Dr. Prince to tell us—whether there is any danger to him if you persist in going against his wishes."

Something of condemnation, such as Char had never yet heard in her easy-going cousin's voice, silenced her. She felt bitterly that every one was against her, no one understood.

Then Miss Bruce's hand came out timidly and patted her on the shoulder. Dear old Brucey! Char recognized her fidelity in a sudden spasm of most unwonted gratitude. Brucey at least knew that a real struggle was in progress between Char's sense of patriotism and the pain that it naturally gave her to resist the wishes of the parents whose point of view she could not share.

For the first time since she was a child, Char felt moved to one of her rare demonstrations of affection towards the faithful Miss Bruce. She smiled at her, pain and gratitude mingling in her gaze, and let her hand lie for a moment on the little secretary's.

Trevellyan leant against the chimney-piece, his hands in his pockets, and looked at Joanna with inarticulate, uncomprehending loyalty and admiration in his gaze.

She was pacing up and down the long room with a sort of restrained impatience, the folds of her black dress sweeping round her tall figure as she moved. In the silence, broken only by the rustling of Joanna's gown, the approach of Dr. Prince's small, old-fashioned motor-car was plainly audible.

Miss Bruce gave one timid look at Lady Vivian, then got up and went to the door.

They heard her speak to the servant in the hall, and then she came back again and took up her place close to Char.

"Did you ask him to come in here?"

"Yes, Lady Vivian. At least, I told them to show him in here."

Joanna resumed her restless pacing.

Then the drawing-room door opened and closed again upon the doctor, entering with the stooping gait of a hard-worked, tired man at the end of the day.

"Good-evening, Dr. Prince," said Joanna abruptly. "Will you give us the benefit of your advice?"

"On whose account?" demanded the doctor, glancing sharply from one to another of the group.

"It's just this," said Char's cool, incisive tones. "My mother wishes to persuade me that my father is not in a fit state for me to take up my work at Questerham again. That I ought to remain here, doing practically nothing, while there's work crying out to be done."

"Sir Piers is in no immediate danger," said the doctor slowly. "In fact, there is every reason to hope that he is getting better. Otherwise, I suppose, you would hardly contemplate leaving home."

"But she's not suggesting leaving home!" cried Miss Bruce. "It's only a case of going backwards and forwards every day."

The doctor shrugged his shoulders and glanced at Lady Vivian.

"Sir Piers doesn't wish it," said Joanna curtly. "Surely that's reason enough. It distressed him very much, even before he was ill, that she should go and do this office work."

"I see. Yes. The ideas of the present day are not very easily assimilated by our generation," said the doctor gently.

He had often thought himself that Miss Vivian of Plessing had better have worked with her needle or amongst the poor, as had done the great ladies of his own generation, instead of in a Questerham office. But he had also been rather ashamed of his thoughts, and would not for the world have had them guessed by his pushing, good-natured wife, who was proud to let her two daughters help at the Depôt.

"We live in abnormal times," Char said. "I'm not doing the work for my own pleasure, but because the need for workers is desperate. I can do the job I've undertaken, and so far as I can see, there is no adequate reason, unless my father gets very much worse, for me to desert it."

"It's not," said Miss Bruce judicially, "as though any one could take her place at the Depôt."

"For the matter of that," Trevellyan remarked, with unexpected logic, "it's not as though any one could take her place here."

"But that's just it!" cried Char. "I don't do anything at all here. Dr. Prince, you know perfectly well that I don't; we spoke of it the other day. Can you conscientiously tell me that my absence during the day is going to make the slightest difference to my father's case?"

"No. Speaking professionally, I can't," said the doctor.

Joanna stopped in her walking and looked at him, but it was evident that the doctor had not finished. He cleared his throat and faced Char.

"But if you're trying, which you obviously are, to bamboozle me into justifying you in taking your own way, Miss Charmian, then I'll tell you something else. It's not the work you want to get back to, young lady; it's the excitement, and the official position, and the right it gives you to interfere with people who knew how to run a hospital and everything connected with it some twenty years or so before you came into the world. That's what you want. I can't tell you, as a matter of medical opinion, that it will bring on a second stroke, if you vex and disappoint your good father by monkeying about in a becoming uniform and a bit of gold braid on an office stool while he desires you to stay at home; but I can and I do tell you that you're playing as heartless a trick as any I ever saw, making patriotism the excuse for bullying a lot of women who work themselves to death for you because you're of a better class, and have more personality than themselves, and pretending to yourself that it's the work you're after, when it's just because you want to get somewhere where you'll be in the limelight all the time."

There was perfect silence, while the doctor took out a large handkerchief and wiped his forehead.

At last Joanna said dryly: "Well, I don't know that I should have said it myself, but upon my word, Char, I believe you've got the case in a nutshell."

"No!" cried Miss Bruce. "It's unjust!"

Char looked at her, white and smiling.

"Yes, it's unjust enough," she said slowly. "But, as my mother has just implied, it is her own opinion, apparently, as well as Dr. Prince's."

"No! no!" cried Joanna quickly, moving towards her daughter. "Not altogether, Char. Only I can't have your father vexed—indeed, I can't."

"You are making it very hard for me. But my choice is made. I cannot, and will not, let a personal consideration come before the work."

"You mean to go back?"

"On Monday—the day after tomorrow."

For a moment Char looked at them, superbly alone. Then she moved towards the door. Miss Bruce, looking half frightened and half admiring, crept after her, and Joanna made a sudden movement that caused Trevellyan to put out his hand towards her.

"No, I'm not going to touch her. But if you go, Char, you'll stay in Questerham. I won't have you coming back and disturbing the house and waking him at all hours. I won't have you here at all, unless he asks for you."

Char made a gesture of acquiescence, and went without a word from the room.

"Oh!" cried Joanna, her blue eyes dark and her voice shaking, but unconquerably colloquial in the midst of her pain and anger. "Oh, why in Heaven's name didn't I whip Char when she was younger?"

XI

"Enter Edith Elizabeth Plumtree, restored to health and happiness. Loud cheers from the spectators."

"Hurrah! How nice to see you back, dear! You look a different girl."

"I feel it," declared Miss Plumtree, exchanging vigorous handshakes with everybody.

"What with her being in plain clothes, and having gone up about a stone in weight," said Tony, "I simply didn't know her at the station. Gracie and I tore down on our bicycles to meet her, and thought of commandeering two orderlies and a stretcher to bring her up from the station. Instead of which she's so much stronger than we are that she pushed both bikes up the hill without turning a hair, while Gracie and I panted in the rear!"

"Doesn't she look well?" cried Grace. "I've never seen her look so well—and isn't it becoming?"

Everybody laughed. Personal remarks of any but a markedly facetious order were known by the Hostel to be indelicate; but it was generally conceded that Gracie Jones was so nice it didn't matter what she said, since she probably couldn't help being unlike other people.

Miss Delmege eyed Miss Plumtree's fair round face and plump figure with approval.

"I like that costume," she observed critically. "New, isn't it, dear?"

"No, dyed. It's my last year's grey."

"You don't mean to say it's turned that sweet saxe? Well, you have done well with it! I must commence seeing about my own winter costume, I suppose. I'd been thinking of mole or nigger."

Miss Delmege possessed an almost technical vocabulary of descriptive adjectives which she applied prodigally and exclusively to matters of wardrobe.

She proceeded to elaborate her favourite theme, although unable to command a better audience than Grace, since every one else immediately became more absorbed than ever in Miss Plumtree.

"Of course, blue's my colour, you know, being fair. Not sky, I don't mean, but royal or navy. But, then, one sees so many of those shades about, and I do like something distinctive."

"You should get some patterns."

"I have done already. You must help me to choose, Gracie. There's a shade of elephant that I rather liked; it would look nice with my cream blouse, I thought."

"Yes, very," Grace agreed cordially, and perhaps not without a hope that this would now close the discussion.

"Then there's the style." Miss Delmege pursued her reflective way. "I thought of a pleat down the centre, being tall, you see; I always think one must be tall to carry things off. Unless, of course," she added hastily, "one has a really perfect figure, like Miss Vivian."

Miss Plumtree turned round.

"How is Miss Vivian? Didn't some one tell me she was back at the office? I suppose her father's better."

"Very much the same," Miss Delmege told her sadly. "Of course, it's perfectly wonderful of her to—"

"Oh," said Miss Marsh maliciously, "if you want news about Plessing, Greengage, you must ask Gracie. She's been out there every day in the car, so as to go through the letters with Miss Vivian."

"I say! Really?"

"Yes, rather. She had lunch with Miss Vivian's mother nearly every day."

"I rather envied her the motor ride," said Miss Delmege languidly, with the implication that no other consideration could have moved her to jealousy for a moment. "But, as a matter of fact, I couldn't manage to go myself—laid up with this wretched flu, you know. I simply wasn't fit to stir. Of course, Miss Vivian knew that; she was awfully sweet about it. But, then, I always say, the attractive thing about her is that she's so desperately human, when once you get to know her."

"And is she back at the office?" inquired Miss Plumtree, turning a deaf ear to these descriptive touches.

"Comes back tomorrow morning, Monday. Some one from Plessing rang up yesterday afternoon when I was on telephone duty and said so."

"That would be Lady Vivian's secretary, Miss Bruce."

"Yes," said Miss Delmege reflectively. "She's been with them for years, and is perfectly devoted to Miss Vivian. She's too sweet about her—Miss Vivian, I mean. I've heard her telephoning sometimes; she calls her Brucey."

"Frightfully human!" was Tony's enthusiastic comment.

"Yes, isn't it?"

A moment's thoughtful silence was consecrated to the consideration of Miss Vivian's humanity, and then Miss Plumtree was escorted upstairs to take off her hat.

"Really, that girl looks a different creature!" Mrs. Potter exclaimed.

"Doesn't she? She ought to be most awfully grateful to Miss Vivian. You know Miss Vivian arranged the whole thing? With all she's got to think of, too! But that's Miss Vivian all over. Never lets slip a chance of doing a kindness. I've seen her go out of her way...."

But Miss Delmege's anecdote was not fated to meet with attention.

Mrs. Bullivant walked into the sitting-room looking awestruck.

"Girls, who do you think is coming to sleep here tomorrow night?"

"There isn't room for any one else, is there?" mildly inquired Mrs. Potter, who slept in a bedroom which contained four beds.

"We shall have to manage somehow. I've just had a note—Miss Vivian is coming here."

"She isn't!"

There was a chorus of astonishment; then Miss Delmege's attenuated little tones contrived, as usual, to make themselves audible: "Well, I'm not altogether surprised, do you know? I'd rather suspected something of the kind. Plessing has to be kept quiet on account of Sir Piers; and she's been ill herself, and isn't fit to come backwards and forwards in this cold. I thought something of the kind would be arranged, and I had a very shrewd suspicion as to what it would be."

It need not be added that nobody made the faintest pretence of believing in this prescience.

"Well, I'm blessed!" said Miss Henderson emphatically. "Where is she going to sleep? There isn't a single room in the house, is there?"

"She must have my room," said Mrs. Bullivant simply. "I think I can make it nice and bright for her before tomorrow night. It'll just need fresh curtains and a bit of carpet or two, and I thought you'd let me have the looking-glass out of your room, Miss Jones dear. Mine is such a cracked old thing."

"Yes, of course. But where are you going to sleep yourself, Mrs. Bullivant?"

"That's another thing, dear. Your room is absolutely the only one where there's an inch of space for a spare bed. Would you and Miss Marsh mind very much...?"

"No," said Miss Marsh emphatically, "of course not. But wouldn't it be more comfortable for you to have a bed in your own sitting-room? There'd just be room behind the door, I think."

"Ah, yes, dear; but, then, I must have somewhere for Miss Vivian's meals. I can't send her down to the basement for supper very well, can I?"

"Hardly!" exclaimed Miss Delmege, with a slight, superior laugh at so outrageous a suggestion.

"I'm sure I hope she'll be fairly comfortable. It's only for a few nights, till she's made other arrangements."

"I can tell you one thing," Miss Delmege remarked authoritatively. "The one thing Miss Vivian hates is a fuss. I happen to know that. She'll simply want everything to go on as usual, and to be let alone."

"That's all very well, but it's easier said than done!" even the gentle Mrs. Bullivant was constrained to exclaim. "It'll mean an upset for the whole house, with extra meals and everything. I mean, dear, one really can't help seeing that it will. I don't know what cook and Mrs. Smith will say, I'm sure."

"Considering that it's Miss Vivian who pays them their wages, they won't say much, unless they want to be dismissed," Miss Delmege retorted.

Mrs. Bullivant went away looking very much harassed.

"Do let's help her to turn out of her rooms!" exclaimed Grace. "It'll be much easier for her to do it tonight, with us to help her, than tomorrow, when she's sure to be busy all day."

"Good egg! Come on, girls!" cried Tony.

Miss Marsh and Miss Plumtree responded to the summons. They helped Mrs. Bullivant to take her crumpled blouses and limp black skirts from behind the torn curtain where they were huddled against the wall; and Grace mended the curtain while Tony and Miss Plumtree put away the clothes in a big cardboard dress-box, where Mrs. Bullivant said they would do very well for the time being.

"What about that stain on the wall where the damp came through so badly?" Miss Marsh asked doubtfully.

"Pin up a copy of an Army Council Instruction as a delicate attention. Then she can learn it by heart while she gets up in the morning," was Tony's facetious suggestion.

"Put up a map of the Midlands, with a red-ink line round every affiliated depôt."

"Don't be silly, girls! You're so foolish I can't help laughing at you," declared Mrs. Bullivant. "No; but I think we might put up a picture or something. Now, I wonder what we've got."

"There are Kitchener and Lord Roberts in the sitting-room," suggested Miss Marsh. "I'll fetch them up."

She ran down, and came back triumphantly with the large framed photogravures. It was found that Lord Roberts would successfully mask the stain on the wall, and Miss Plumtree and Mrs. Bullivant made themselves very dusty by clambering on to chairs and affixing a nail, hammered in with the heel of Miss Plumtree's shoe, from which the picture was finally suspended.

"It looks quite nice and bright, doesn't it?" Mrs. Bullivant asked them. "Not like Plessing, perhaps—but, then, Miss Vivian won't expect that. Now, is there anything else up here?"

"We might put in a kettle," Grace said. "I'm sure she won't have one of her own." So Grace's own kettle, which was a pretty little brass one, was left upon the washing-stand, and Miss Marsh said that Gracie and she would share hers. They went downstairs congratulating one another upon their forethought, and upon the renovated appearance of the tiny bedroom.

Just before supper Miss Delmege, coming upstairs with a graceful, bending gait indicative of still recent convalescence, encountered Grace.

"You've made the rooms look quite sweet, dear, and Miss Vivian is sure to appreciate it. She's one of those people who always notices little things."

Grace was tired, and had run up and down stairs a number of times, for the most part with her hands and arms full.

"I wanted to help Mrs. Bullivant, that was all," she said curtly.

"There's no call to get annoyed, dear!" exclaimed Miss Delmege, amazed.

Grace looked up penitently.

"I know there isn't. I don't know why I sounded so cross. I think perhaps I'm a little tired of the sound of Miss Vivian's name, that's all."

"Well! Of all the peculiar things to say! Upon my word, dear," said Miss Delmege scathingly, "if I didn't know you so intimately, I should sometimes consider your manner downright strange!"

This conviction remained with Miss Delmege. She went into the sitting-room to await the supper-bell, which Mrs. Bullivant generally rang some quarter of an hour after the appointed time, and remarked in a detached voice: "Poor Grace Jones seems rather upset tonight. What I should almost call sort of on edge. I suppose she doesn't like the idea of having to go back to the ordinary office routine tomorrow, after going in and out from Plessing in the way she has done."

"I didn't notice anything wrong with her, I must say!" exclaimed Miss Marsh, who was both fond of Grace and anxious to miss no opportunity for contradicting Miss Delmege.

"No, dear? Well, perhaps you wouldn't. There's none so blind as those that won't see, and we all know that love is blind," was the gentle response of Miss Delmege, as she sank into the chair nearest the fire.

Miss Marsh could think of no better retort than "I'm sure I don't know what you mean by that, Delmege, and I shouldn't think you did yourself, either."

"There's the bell," said Tony.

They trooped down to the basement, and every one said how nice it was to see old Plumtree back in her place again, and Mrs. Bullivant triumphantly announced that there would be sausages, because Miss Plumtree liked them, to celebrate her return.

"Not two for me, really, please," Miss Delmege protested elegantly, and manipulated the extreme ends of her knife and fork with the merest tips of her exclusively curved fingers, as a protest against the great enthusiasm displayed by several of her neighbours.

On the same principle, when the sausages were followed by a loaf of bread and a pot of marmalade, Miss Delmege cut up her bread into small, accurately shaped dice, and said, "Pass the preserve if you will, please, dear," between two very small sips at her cup of cocoa. She sat at the foot of the table, and the chairs on either side of her generally remained vacant. Grace came down late, and apologized. One might be, and almost inevitably was, late on week-days, owing to the exigencies of the office, but Sunday supper was something of a ritual.

"So nice and homelike, all sitting down together with no one in a hurry," Mrs. Bullivant always said. But she smiled a welcome at Grace.

"I've kept your supper nice and hot, dear," she said, uncovering a plate next to her own. "Come and sit down here, won't you? You look tired tonight."

Miss Delmege shot a triumphant glance at Miss Marsh, who pretended not to see it, and did not fail to observe that tired or not, Grace made her usual excellent supper.

"I wonder if any one has any cigs?" Tony suggested wistfully.

"Yes," said Grace promptly. "Luckily, I have a whole box."

"Oh, you angel! How lovely! I do hate Sundays without a cigarette. Somehow, on other evenings there never seems to be time to smoke, or else one's too tired and goes straight to bed."

In the sitting-room Grace produced her box of cigarettes.

It was almost a matter of course at the Hostel that such things should be treated as belonging more to the community than to the individual.

"Thanks awfully, Gracie."

"Really? Are you sure? Well, then, thanks so much, if I may—just one."

"Delmege? Oh, you don't smoke, though, do you?"

"No, thank you. I dare say I seem old-fashioned, but it's the way mother brought us all up from children, and I must say I always feel that smoking is—well, rather unwomanly, you know."

In the face of this commentary Miss Marsh struck a match, and passed it round the room.

The atmosphere became clouded.

"You know," Grace said rather mischievously to Miss Delmege, "that Miss Vivian smokes?"

"She doesn't!"

"Indeed she does. Didn't you know that? Why, I've often noticed the smell of tobacco when she hangs up her coat in the office. It's unmistakable."

"That might mean anything!" hastily exclaimed Miss Delmege. "Tobacco does cling so. Very likely it hangs all round the house at Plessing, you know, with a man in the house and people always coming and going, probably."

"You forget that Gracie knows all about Plessing," cried Miss Marsh instantly. "Of course, she's seen Miss Vivian at home."

"And does she really smoke?" asked Tony.

"Yes, she does. Quite a lot, I think."

"Ah, well, that's different, isn't it?" Miss Delmege's serenity remained quite unimpaired. "One can understand her requiring it. I believe it really is supposed to be soothing, isn't it? Of course, working as she does, her nerves probably require it. What I mean to say is, she probably requires it for her nerves."

"I dare say. I wonder where she'll smoke here?"

"In Mrs. Bullivant's sitting-room, I suppose. Not that she'll be here much, I don't suppose. Only just for her meals, you know, and then to go straight to bed when she gets in."

"I do hope that her sleeping in Questerham isn't going to serve her as an excuse for working later than ever!" exclaimed Miss Delmege, in the tones of proprietary concern with which she always spoke of Miss Vivian's strenuous habits.

"Yes, I see what you mean," Mrs. Potter agreed. "With her car waiting, she simply had to come away sooner or later."

"Exactly; and she's always so considerate for her chauffeur, and every one. I really do think that I've never seen any one—and I'm not saying it because it is Miss Vivian, but speaking quite impersonally—any one who went out of her way, as she does, to think of other people."

"Look at what she did for me—even ordered a cab each way for me!" cried Miss Plumtree, very simply.

"That," said Miss Delmege gently, "is just Miss Vivian all over."

Miss Marsh bounced up from her chair, rudely severing the acquiescent silence that followed on this well-worn cliché.

"I'm going up to get my knitting. I simply must get those socks done for Christmas. I suppose no one will be shocked at my knitting on Sunday?"

"Gracious, no! Especially when it's for the Army. When's he coming on leave, Marshie?"

"Oh, goodness knows! The poor boy's in hospital out there. Can I fetch anything for any one while I'm upstairs?"

"My work-basket, if you wouldn't mind," said Grace.

"I say," asked Mrs. Potter, as the door slammed behind Miss Marsh, "is she engaged?"

"Oh no. She has heaps of pals, you know," Miss Henderson explained. "She's that sort of girl, I fancy. Haven't you noticed all the letters she gets with the field postmark? It isn't always the same boy, either, because there are quite three different handwritings. And her brothers are both in the Navy, so it isn't them."

"Well," said Miss Delmege, with the little air of originality so seldom justified by her utterances, "they say there's safety in numbers."

"Here's your basket, Gracie," said Miss Marsh, reappearing breathless. "How extraordinarily tidy you are! I always know exactly where to find your things—that is, if mine aren't all over them!"

"What are you going to make, Gracie?"

"Only put some ribbon in my things. The washing was back last night, instead of tomorrow morning, which will be such a saving of time during the week. I wish it always came on Saturday," said Grace, serenely drawing out a small folded pile of linen from her capacious and orderly basket.

Every one looked rather awestruck.

"Do you put in ribbon every week?"

"Isn't it marvellous of her?" Miss Marsh inquired proudly, gazing at her room-mate. "She has such nice things, too."

Grace uncarded a length of ribbon, and began to thread it through the lace of the garment known to the Hostel as a camisole.

"I can't say I take the trouble myself. My things go to the wash as they are, ribbon and all. The colour has to take its chances," said Miss Plumtree.

"Are we going to have any music tonight?" inquired Miss Delmege, with a sudden effect of primness.

The suggestion was received without enthusiasm.

"Then," Miss Delmege said, with a glance at Grace, who had completed the adornment of her camisole, and was proceeding to unfold yet further garments, "I think I shall go to bed."

"Do, dear," Mrs. Bullivant told her kindly. "I hope any one will go early who's tired."

Miss Delmege smiled cryptically.

"Well," she said gently, "underwear in the sitting-room, you know!"

"Oh dear!" cried Grace in tones of dismay. "Is that really why she's gone upstairs?"

"No loss, either," Miss Marsh declared stoutly.

"But it's only my petticoat bodice."

"I suppose she didn't know what might be coming next."

Grace, guiltily conscious of that which might quite well have been coming next but for this timely reminder, hastily completed her work and put it away again.

She leant back in the wicker chair, unconsciously adjusting her weight with due regard to its habit of creaking, and gazed into the red embers of the dying fire.

Her mind was quite abstracted, and she was unaware of the spasmodic conversation carried on all round her.

Her thoughts were at Plessing.

How could Miss Vivian be coming to stay at the Hostel when her father was so ill, and Lady Vivian alone at Plessing? Grace remembered the expression on Joanna's face when her daughter had said that she could no longer stay away from the office at Questerham.

She supposed that a consent had been extorted from her by Char, unless, indeed, Miss Vivian had not deemed even that formality to be necessary. Grace wondered, with unusual despondency, when or if she should see Lady Vivian again. She felt quite certain now that never again would any pretext induce Char to let her return to Plessing, and was not without a suspicion that she might be made to feel, in her secretarial work, that the Plessing days had not been a success in the eyes of Miss Vivian.

"Never mind; it was quite worth it," thought Grace, and it was characteristic of her that the idea of seeking work elsewhere than with the Director of the Midland Supply Depôt never occurred to her.

"A penny for your thoughts, Gracie."

"Oh, they're not worth it, Mrs. Potter. They weren't very far away."

"Perhaps they were just where mine have been all the evening—with poor Miss Vivian. She'll be feeling it tonight, poor dear, knowing she's got to leave tomorrow, and Sir Piers so ill. I do think she's wonderful."

"I must say, so do I," Miss Henderson said thoughtfully. "When she used always to refuse me the afternoon off, or any sort of leave, and say that she couldn't understand putting anything before the work, I used to resent it sometimes, I must own. But, really, she's lived up to it herself so splendidly that one can't ever say another word."

"Isn't Sir Piers any better?" asked Miss Plumtree pityingly.

"Not a bit, I think. But he's not exactly in immediate danger, either. Only the house has to be kept quiet, so I suppose she can't come backwards and forwards like she used, and it's a choice between her leaving home or giving up the work altogether."

"Well, I do think it's splendid of her!"

"Because, of course," Tony said, "nobody could take her place here. And I suppose she can't help knowing that. It will seem extraordinary having her in the Hostel, won't it?"

"It won't really be comfortable for her after Plessing, I'm afraid. I wish I could think of some better arrangement...." murmured Mrs. Bullivant to herself.

"Oh, Mrs. Bullivant!" cried Grace Jones. "You couldn't do more than give up your own bedroom and your own sitting-room to her!"

Then, because the heretical words "And that's more than she deserves," were trembling on her tongue, Grace went upstairs to bed.

Her sense of loyalty to her chief did not allow her to throw any doubt on the glory of her return to work under such circumstances.

Moreover, the Hostel's point of view on the subject was as adamantine as it was universal.

XII

The next morning Char came back to the office. She found her table loaded with violets and a blazing fire on the hearth. Miss Delmege greeted her with an air of admiring wonder, suffused by a tinge of respectful pity, and ventured to hope that Sir Piers Vivian was better.

No one else was sufficiently daring to approach so personal a topic, but little Miss Anthony, blushing brightly, turned round at the door just as she was leaving the room with her work, and said stammeringly that it was so nice to see Miss Vivian back in the office again.

Char smiled.

She was still looking ill, and she knew that her departure from Plessing had been a severe strain on her barely recovered strength. The effort of giving her attention to the arrears of work which required it taxed all her powers of determination.

"Is this all the back work, Miss Delmege?"

"Yes, I think so, Miss Vivian."

"There are several things here which ought to have been brought to me."

"I suppose Miss Jones didn't know."

"But she ought to have known. It was most annoying having to leave so much to her. She hasn't the necessary experience for one thing, and is far too fond of acting on her own initiative."

It gave Char a curious satisfaction to say this in the cool and judicial tones of complete impartiality.

"I shall have a fearful amount to do with these back numbers. Bring me the Hospital files, and the Belgian file, and W.O. letters—and—yes, let me see—Colonial Officers. That will do for the moment; and send for Miss Collins, please."

The stenographer entered the room with her most dégagé swing, and seated herself opposite to Char, her pad poised upon her crossed knees.

"Good-morning, Miss Vivian," she said gaily. "Nice to see you back again. I hope you've quite got over the influenza?"

"Thank you," said Char icily. "Please take down a letter to the O.C. London General Hospital."

She dictated rapidly, but Miss Collins's shorthand was never at a loss, and at the end of forty minutes she still appeared tireless and quite unruffled.

"That will do, for the moment."

Miss Collins uncrossed her knees, and looked up.

"I shall be wanting ten days' leave, Miss Vivian," was her unprecedented remark.

The scratching of Miss Delmege's pen paused for a moment, and, although she did not turn round, a tremor agitated her neat, erect back.

Char looked at her unabashed typist.

"There will be no Christmas leave," she said curtly, taking the resolution on the instant.

"I expect I shall want it before Christmas—about the end of this week. The fact is—"

"I'm sorry, but it's quite out of the question. Naturally, one rule applies to the whole staff, and I shall not expect any one to be absent from duty except on Christmas Day itself, which will be treated as a Sunday. As for ten days, the suggestion is absurd, Miss Collins. I consider that you've practically had ten days' holiday during my absence—and more."

"I've been here every day as usual, and cut any number of stencils, and rolled them off," Miss Collins cried indignantly.

"I'm glad to hear it. Why do you want leave now?"

Miss Collins giggled, tried to look coy, and at last said in triumphant tones, which strove to sound matter-of-fact: "I'm going to be married."

There was silence. Char was drawing a design absently on her blotting-pad.

"My friend is getting leave at the end of next week, and we've settled to be married before he goes out again. He's an Australian boy."

"Of course, that slightly alters the case," Char said at last, stiffly. "Do you wish to go on working here just the same?"

"Oh, yes, Miss Vivian. What I feel is, that with him out there, I simply must be doing my bit at home. It'll take my mind off, too, like, and as he says—"

Char interrupted her ruthlessly.

"In the circumstances, Miss Collins, you can take eight days' leave at the end of this week. But I may tell you that you have chosen a most inconvenient moment, with the Christmas rush coming on and a great deal of back work to be done."

Her manner was a dismissal.

Miss Collins left the room.

"Miss Delmege, do you think that we could find some one to replace Miss Collins?"

"For the time—or permanently?"

"While she's away, I meant. It would be difficult to get any one permanently in her place, I'm afraid. Besides, she's an extremely good stenographer, and I can't afford to have one who'll make mistakes."

Char paused, and her feminine curiosity conquered official aloofness. "Did you know that she was engaged to be married?"

"I've seen her wearing a ring, but, naturally, I never come across her except officially," was the haughty response of her secretary.

But however detached she might proclaim herself to be, Miss Delmege did not keep the news of Miss Collins's wedding to herself. In less than twenty-four hours it was known all over the office. It was perhaps fortunate that the Director of the Midland Supply Depôt did not know the number of departments in her office that interspersed the day's work with discussions as to what Miss Collins would wear as a wedding-dress. The interest of it almost eclipsed the sensation of Char's own installation at the Hostel.

She arrived there at nine o'clock that night. It would have been possible for her to leave the office a good deal earlier, but she was aware that the members of her staff would not expect any deviation from her usual iron rule, and were probably telling one another at that moment how wonderful it was to think that Miss Vivian should never have her dinner before half-past nine at night.

Char, tired and oddly apprehensive, was inclined to think it rather wonderful herself. The door of the Hostel stood open to the street, as usual, but since the air-raid over Questerham all lights had been carefully shaded, and only the faintest glimmer of a rather dismal green light appeared to welcome Char as she rang the bell.

She thought that the hall looked narrow and dingy, and a large box took up an inconvenient amount of space at the foot of the stairs. Then it occurred to her, with an unpleasant sense of recognition, that the box was her own.

"Is that Miss Vivian?" came a voice through the gloom. "Won't you come in?"

Char came in, gingerly enough. Then a match was struck, and Mrs. Bullivant anxiously held up a lighted candle to guide her footsteps.

"Just down the step, Miss Vivian, and I've got supper all ready for you in my sitting-room. I thought you'd like it best there. Our dining-room is in the basement, you know."

"Thank you; this will do very well."

Char looked round the tiny room rather wonderingly. Preparations for a meal stood on a table that was obviously a writing-table pushed against the wall and covered with a white cloth.

"It'll be ready in one minute, Miss Vivian," repeated the Hostel Superintendent nervously. "I'll just go and tell the cook. I expect you must be hungry, and would rather have supper first, and then go to your room. And I'm very sorry, but we've had to leave your trunk downstairs. The stairs are rather too narrow, and the maids thought they couldn't manage it."

Mrs. Bullivant went away, as though supposing that the last word had been said upon the subject of the trunk.

Char thought otherwise.

In a few minutes Mrs. Bullivant came back with a tray, on which stood a cup of cocoa, another one of soup, and a plate with two pieces of bread. "I thought you'd like soup, as it's such a cold night," she said triumphantly. "Now, you must tell me if you have any special likes and dislikes, won't you? I do so hope you'll be fairly comfortable here, Miss Vivian. I can't tell you how very much it's impressed all the girls, your coming here like this, for the sake of the work. I'm afraid it won't be as comfortable as Plessing."

The same fear was also taking very definite possession of Char's mind.

She pulled up a low cane-seated chair to the table and began the soup and bread. The cocoa, already poured out, must, it was evident, be allowed to get cool until the arrival of a next course. This proved to be a dish of scrambled eggs, and was followed by one large baked apple.

Char felt thankful that she had refused her maid's solicitations to come with her. Preston confronted by such a meal, either for herself or for Miss Vivian, was quite unthinkable.

Char thought of Plessing and the dinner that had awaited her there every evening, with Miss Bruce hovering anxiously round the other end of the table, with something like homesickness.

Then she derided herself, half laughing. What did food matter, after all?

But she decided that Miss Delmege must be told to find her rooms in Questerham as soon as possible. Then Preston could join her.

This last thought was prompted by Char's strong disinclination to unpack, a duty which she realized now would, for the first time, devolve upon herself.

It would not be facilitated by the prominent position given to her trunk in the hall of the Hostel.

"Mrs. Bullivant," said Char, when the Superintendent returned, "my trunk must be taken up to my room, please."

Her tone was unmistakably, and quite intentionally, that of the Director of the Midland Supply Depôt issuing instructions to a member of her staff.

"Yes, Miss Vivian," automatically replied the little Superintendent, and added desperately: "But I'm afraid that cook and Mrs. Smith won't do it—not if they've once said they won't."

Char raised her eyebrows.

"If the servants don't obey your orders they must leave," she said. "But isn't there any one else?"

"Perhaps two of the girls—" Mrs. Bullivant hesitated, and then left the room.

Char heard her open the door of the next room, which she knew must be the sitting-room, and a babel of voices immediately became audible.

She waited, rather annoyed.

Mrs. Bullivant came out into the hall, followed by quite a large group.

"This is it. Look, dears, can you manage it? Miss Henderson, dear, you're tall."

"Oh, yes. It's only up one flight, and it isn't a very large box—only an awkward shape. Will some one give me a hand?"

Miss Plumtree, who was sturdy, came to assist, and between them, with a great deal of straining and pulling, and many anxious ejaculations from the door-way of the sitting-room, they slowly lifted the box.

"Don't hurt yourself, now!" cried Mrs. Bullivant. "Get it from underneath, Henderson!"

"Mind the paint on the wall!"

"Mind the banisters!"

"Oh, mind what you're doing, Greengage!"

Similar helpful ejaculations resounded, as the two girls carried the box up the first flight of narrow stairs.

Just as they reached the top step, Char heard the small, clear voice of her secretary, standing in the hall.

"Can you manage, or shall I help you?"

There was a general laugh, echoed from above, as Miss Henderson's voice came briefly down to them: "Thanks, Delmege; just like you, dear, but we happen to have finished."

They all laughed again.

Char, through the half-open door, saw Miss Delmege tossing her fair head. "I'm afraid I don't quite see the point of the joke," she observed acidly.

"Now go in to the fire again, all of you," Mrs. Bullivant exclaimed. "Miss Vivian will hear you if you chatter like this in the hall. I'll tell her the box is safely upstairs."

When she returned to impart the information, Char had shut the door of her little room again.

"Wouldn't you like to come upstairs, Miss Vivian?" the Superintendent asked her timidly. "They've managed to get your box up all right, and I expect you'll be wanting to unpack."

Char wanted nothing less, but she realized that the unwelcome task must of necessity precede her night's rest, and went upstairs with Mrs. Bullivant.

The bedroom seemed to her very tiny, and, indeed, what space there was, her box and dressing-bag mainly occupied. It was also exceedingly cold.

When Mrs. Bullivant had wished her good-night, with a certain wistful air of expecting an enthusiasm which Char felt quite unable to display, she slipped on her fur coat and began to tug at the strap of her trunk.

The process of unpacking at least succeeded in warming her. But there was hardly any room to put away even the limited number of belongings that she had brought, and Char told herself rather indignantly that Mrs. Bullivant seemed to be a most incompetent manager, and might at least have provided her employer with a respectably sized bedroom in her own Hostel.

Towards ten o'clock she heard the sitting-room door opened, and a general whispering and rustling proclaimed that several people were coming upstairs. Char did not, however, at once realize the full significance of the fact that her own room adjoined the bathroom. A thin but incessant stream of conversation began, punctuated by the loud hissing of a kettle which had overboiled upon the gas-ring.

"How's the water tonight?"

"Fair to middling. I don't know who is having baths, but there won't be enough water for more than two."

"It's only tepid as it is."

"I am hungry," proclaimed a plaintive voice in incautiously raised tones.

"H'sh-sh! You'll disturb Miss Vivian. Why are you hungry at this hour, Tony?"

"Well, we didn't have anything frightfully substantial for supper, did we? and I had to go after the scrambled eggs, because I was on telephone duty. So I didn't even have any pudding."

"Oh, poor kid! Couldn't Mrs. Bullivant have got you something?"

"I didn't like to ask her; she's so worried tonight, what with Miss Vivian's coming and everything. Besides"—Tony's voice sounded very serious—"there never is anything, you know. Only tomorrow's breakfast."

"Hasn't any one got some biscuits?"

"I'll go down to the kitchen and find some milk for you," said the peculiarly distinct tones of Grace Jones. "I know where it's kept."

"Oh, why should you bother?"

"It isn't at all a bother. You must be starving."

Char heard Miss Jones going downstairs again, and then a triumphant voice proclaimed: "I know who has some biscuits! Plumtree. She brought them back from her holiday. I'll go and ask her."

"Come on!"

Evidently Tony and Miss Marsh felt an equal certainty that Miss Plumtree's biscuits could be looked upon as community goods.

There was a silence, before a voice from the next story cried urgently down the stairs: "I say, is my kettle boiling? I put it on the gas-ring ages ago, as I went upstairs. Will some one have a look?"

"It boiled over some time ago," Miss Delmege proclaimed very distinctly. "I took it off for you."

"Thanks very much. I'll come."

There was a hasty descent, evidently in bedroom slippers, and then a long whispered colloquy of which Miss Vivian heard only her own name. Evidently Miss Delmege, at least, had not forgotten the proximity of her chief. Char several times heard her "H'sh!" her companions in a sibilant and penetrating whisper.

"You can't want to wash brushes at this hour!"

"My dear, I simply must. Just let me have the basin half a minute; I've got the water all ready."

"This your kettle?"

"Yes, dear, thank you."

"Oh, Mrs. Potter, have you actually got some ammonia in that water? I wish you'd let me do my brushes with yours."

"Of course, Miss Marsh. There's plenty of room."

"Well, good-night, girls," from Miss Delmege. "It may seem strange to you, me going to bed before ten o'clock, but it's the life. One gets tired, somehow."

"Good-nights" resounded, and one door banged after another.

There was splashing in the bathroom for a little while, and then silence.

Char realized with dismay that she had no hot water, and that the brass kettle on her washing-stand was empty. After reflection, she filled it from the jug, and decided that she must go to the bathroom where the gas-ring was.

She would not have been averse to being seen by her mother just then. War-work under these conditions could not be mistaken for anything but the grim reality that it was.

Lady Vivian, however, not being present, Char performed her domestic labours unobserved, and went shivering to her bed.

She wondered if any one would call her in the morning. This, however, proved not to be necessary.

The walls were thin and the stairs only carpeted with oilcloth, and before seven o'clock Char was startled out of sleep by a prolonged whirring sound overhead, which she only identified as that of an alarm-clock, when footsteps hastily crossed the floor above, and it ceased abruptly.

"Who on earth wants to get up at this hour, when they none of them start work before half-past nine!" she reflected rather disgustedly.

But she remembered that Mrs. Bullivant's duties as Superintendent might include the supervision of Mrs. Smith's arrival every morning and the preparation of breakfast, when a step stole past her door, and the reflection of a lighted candle was flung for a moment on the wall.

Conversations in the bathroom were much briefer in the morning than at night. Evidently every one was too cold, or in too much of a hurry, to talk, although there were sounds of coming and going from half-past seven onwards.

Char went to the bathroom herself at eight o'clock, selecting a moment when it appeared to be empty. She went behind the curtains that screened off the bath from the rest of the room, and found the water very cold.

"Very bad management somewhere," she reflected austerely, and wondered why it should be difficult to provide boiling water by eight o'clock in the morning.

She felt chilled, and not at all rested.

In the little sitting-room downstairs she found a rapidly cooling plate of bacon, uncovered, but solicitously placed on the floor close to the gas-fire, and some large, irregular slices of toast. Marmalade stood in a potted meat jar.

It cannot be denied that Miss Vivian flung an agonized thought to the memory of the admirably furnished breakfast-tray provided for her each morning by the agency of the invaluable Preston at Plessing.

Still very cold, and feeling utterly disinclined for the day's work, Char donned her fur coat over her uniform and went out.

She was not unconscious of the likelihood that her exit from the Hostel might be observed from the windows, and reflected that it would be incumbent on her for the present to take advantage of her new quarters by starting for the office at least an hour earlier than any one else.

But again she found here inconveniences which she had not taken into consideration. The fire in her office was not yet lit, and the charwoman who had charge of keeping the building in order greeted her with frank dismay.

"Your room isn't done yet, miss."

Miss Vivian, exasperated, and colder than ever, set her lips together in a line of endurance.

"You can leave it for today, and in future I wish it to be ready for me by nine o'clock. Please light the fire at once."

The stage of lighting the fire, however, was further off than she realized, and she was obliged to sit huddled in her fur coat, opening letters with mottled, shaking hands that were turning rapidly purple, while the charwoman made an excruciating raking sound at the grate, put up an elaborate and exceedingly deliberate erection of coal, sticks, and newspaper, and finally applied to it a match which resulted in a little pale, cold flame which did not seem to Char productive of any warmth whatever.

She sat at her table and wrote:

"DEAREST BRUCEY,

"Will you send me every woollen garment I have in the world, please? Preston will find them. The cold here is quite appalling, and, of course, one feels the absence of proper heating arrangements at the Hostel terribly. It is, however, naturally much more convenient for me to be able to give more time to the work, which is fearfully heavy after my absence, and will probably increase every day now. I am writing from the office, having been able to get in very early. It might not be a bad plan, later on, to put in a couple of hours' work before breakfast, but please don't let the suggestion dismay you! I shall move into rooms as soon as my secretary can find some, and probably send for Preston. She could be quite useful to me in several ways.

"There is a mountain of papers on my table, all waiting to be dealt with, so I can't go on writing; but I know how much you wanted to hear if the Hostel had proved at all possible. Don't worry, dear old Brucey, as I really can manage perfectly well for the present, in spite of the bitter cold and poor Mrs. Bullivant's hopeless bad management. She had not even arranged for my box to be taken upstairs; and as for hot water, decently served meals, or proper waiting, they are simply unknown quantities. I dare say I shall have to make one or two drastic changes. You won't forget to ring me up if there is any change in father's condition, of course. I could come out at once. This anxiety underlying all one's work is heart-breaking, but I know that I was right to decide as I did, and stick to my post.

"Yours as ever,

"CH. VIVIAN.

"P.S.—Do as you like about reading this letter to my mother."

It was fairly certain in what direction Miss Bruce's "liking" would take her on the point, and it was not without satisfaction that Char felt the certainty of her voluntarily embraced hardships becoming known at Plessing.

Her letter to Miss Bruce somehow restored to her that sense of her own adequacy which physical conditions of discomfort, against which she had felt unable to react, had almost destroyed.

When Miss Jones came to work, a few minutes earlier than usual, she noted, with a regret that was not altogether impersonal, the cold, bluish aspect of her employer's complexion, and wondered if she dared infringe on Miss Delmege's cherished privilege of producing a foot-warmer.

But she was not aware that her own excellent circulation, quite unmistakably displayed in her face and in an unusually white pair of capable hands, formed a distinct addition to the sum of calamities that had befallen Miss Vivian.

XIII

"Char, I've come to warn you," portentously said Captain Trevellyan a week later, entering the Canteen one evening.

"That's very kind of you. Is it another air-raid?"

"No; besides, you're all quite blasées about them now. Miss Jones, single-handed, could cope with—"

"What did you want to warn me about?" interrupted Char, with more abruptness than apprehension in her voice.

"A rescue-party. Miss Bruce is so much upset about you, because she thinks the Hostel is killing you, that she's arranged a crusade to deliver you."

"Miss Bruce means very well, but surely she knows by this time that I don't admit of interference with my work. What does she want to do?"

"You'll see in a minute. I can hear the rescue-party at the door now, I think. They were close behind me."

Char swung round abruptly, and was engulfed in a furry embrace on the instant.

"My dear, pathetic martyr of a child! I've come to take you out of this at once. I hear you've been through the most unspeakable time at that Hostel!"

Char disengaged herself from Mrs. Willoughby's clasp, and endeavoured to silence the intolerable yapping sound that was going on apparently beneath her feet.

"That's Puffles—wicked little boy, be quiet. He would come with me, though I told him that all good little boys went to bye-bye at this hour; but he can't bear me out of his sight, you know. Isn't that too quaint? Quiet, Puff! He understands every single word that's said to him, you know. 'Oo clever, clever little man, aren't 'oo? Everything except talk, 'oo can."

"Come, come; he makes a pretty good shot at that, doesn't he?" Trevellyan said dryly.

"Johnnie, go away and find my precious Lance-Corporal for me. He'll never forgive me if I don't go and talk to him; but you've such a crowd here tonight I can't see any one. Besides, I want to talk to this dear thing. Can't we sit, Char? My dear, never stand when you can possibly sit. That's been my rule all my life, and so I've kept my figure. Not that I'm as slim as you are; but, then, it simply wouldn't be decent if I were, at my age. My Lewis always says that my figure is exactly right, but I dare say he's biassed. Now, dear, what about you?"

"We are particularly busy," Char said pointedly, "and I haven't a moment to call my own. I've only looked in here tonight just to see that everything's in order. Then I must go back to the office."

"Quite unnecessary, I'm perfectly certain. And your looking in here is all nonsense, dear. They all know the work perfectly, and do it far better by themselves than when you're just pottering about, getting in the way. If you put on an overall, and really turned into a perfect barmaid, as I do, it would be different, but just to stand and look on helps nobody, and tires you for nothing. You don't mind my speaking like this? But I know your dearest mother's girl couldn't mind anything, from me!"

Lesbia possessed herself of Char's unresponsive fingers and squeezed them affectionately.

"Now I want to have a real heart-to-heart chat," she proclaimed, lightly but penetratingly.

Char flung a glance round the hall.

One of the men was strumming on the piano, and a group gathered round him was singing and humming, all together, "When Irish eyes are smiling."

The atmosphere was thick with tobacco-smoke, and the demands upon the tea-urns heavier even than usual. Char saw Mrs. Potter, untidier than ever, handing steaming cups across her buffet with incredible rapidity. The noise of clattered crockery was unceasing. But Mrs. Willoughby's voice dominated all these sounds.

"I've heard the whole story from your beloved mother, ridiculously monosyllabic though she always is, and, of course, from that poor, good creature, Miss Bruce, who is miserable about you. She says that your letters are too heartrending—about the misery of that wretched Hostel, I mean. No food, no baths, no fires—and in this weather, too! So, my dear child, you're simply coming straight home with me tonight, to stay until we can find decent rooms for you, or persuade you to give up all this nonsense and go back to Plessing."

"Thank you; but I couldn't dream—"

"Lewis will be delighted. I've explained the whole thing to him, and he's quite overjoyed."

It was impossible, remembering Major Willoughby's unalterable gloom of demeanour, not to suppose that Lesbia's optimism might be overstating the case, but Char only gave a fleeting thought to this consideration.

"It's more than kind of you, but I'm afraid that poor Miss Bruce may be over-anxious—"

"Not another word, Char. Can't we send some one to put your things together at once?"

"Really, I'm most grateful, but I can't accept," said Char decisively. "It's quite true that my secretary hasn't found rooms for me yet, but meanwhile the Hostel does perfectly well, and I'm glad of the opportunity for being so near my work. I couldn't dream of moving."

She began cordially to wish that she had not sought to relieve her feelings by those letters to Miss Bruce, from which the little secretary would appear to have quoted so freely, and to have derived so much food for anxiety.

"Dearest girl, listen to me!" Lesbia exclaimed, raising her voice more than ever above the increasing din and clatter all round them. "I've been talking the whole thing over with your mother, and she's more than willing that I should have you. You needn't trouble about that for a moment. Poor dear Joanna was simply too sweet about it for words. 'I know you'll be a mother to my girl for me,' she said."

Lesbia gazed at Char with the air of one who believes absolutely in the pathos she exploits, and Char was forced to the conclusion that she actually imagined herself to be quoting correctly. For her own part, she attached not the slightest value to Mrs. Willoughby's flights of fancy.

Nevertheless, she was vexed and uneasy. Why could not people leave her alone? It was all very well for Miss Bruce to appreciate the stress of circumstances under which Char pursued her work, but the voluble importunity of Mrs. Willoughby was as unwelcome as it was unescapable. Char looked round her, in search of a possible channel into which to direct Lesbia's attention.

"Isn't that your Lance-Corporal?" she rather basely inquired.

"Where?" shrieked Lesbia. "You know, I'm quite, quite blind!"

This was a fiction frequently indulged in by Mrs. Willoughby, whose eye could safely be trusted to pierce the densest crowd when convenient to herself.

"I see him, just come in. Now, I suppose he'll make a bee-line straight for my little corner. Dear thing, he always does! It's too wonderful to hear him describe all that goes on out there, you know. He was out right at the very beginning, all through Mons and the Marne and Ypres and everything. They say the men don't like talking about it; but I've had, I suppose, more experience than any woman in London, what with one thing and another, and they always talk to me. The dear fellows in the hospital I visit simply yarn by the hour—they love it—and it's too enthralling for words. They're so sweetly quaint. One dear fellow always talked about a place he called Wipers, and it was simply ages before I realized that he meant Ypres! Wasn't that too priceless?"

On this highly original anecdote Mrs. Willoughby hurried away, struggling into her blue-and-white overall as she went.

Char saw her reach the side of the Lance-Corporal and break into voluble greetings, punctuated by hysterical protests from the Pekinese, wedged firmly under her arm.

"Well?" said Trevellyan's voice behind her.

"Well! Nothing will induce me to go and stay there, with that wretched little beast making its hideous noise all day and all night."

They both laughed.

"Seriously, Johnnie, I wish you'd tell Brucey that she really has exceeded her privileges. I can't have plans of that sort made over my head, as she should have known. What on earth possessed her?"

"Your letter worried her. She thought that the Hostel sounded so uncomfortable."

"So it is. But, after all," said Char, torn between a desire to show John how very much she was enduring in a good cause, and at the same time how little she heeded such external conditions, "after all the work is what really matters. It's for the sake of the work I put up with what poor Brucey thinks are hardships."

"But are they really necessary?"

"What do you mean?" said Char, displeased. "It certainly isn't possible for a house built like the Hostel to be either as roomy or as convenient as Plessing is. A certain amount of discomfort is practically unavoidable."

"Dear me! that's very hard on all of you. Don't the others find it trying? They have to be there all the time, don't they?"

"What others?" was the freezing inquiry of the Director of the Midland Supply Depôt.

Trevellyan looked at her in surprise, and replied quite simply: "The other workers, of course."

"Oh, I really don't know. I naturally never see anything of them, except at the office; but, of course—well, I suppose they're used to very much that sort of thing at home."

"Surely not. I was really thinking," Trevellyan remarked with some superfluity, "of Miss Jones."

"You and my mother appear to find some recondite quality in Miss Jones which I'm unable to discover!" exclaimed Char, laughing a little. "Of course she's a lady, but really, as far as work goes—which is, of course, all that matters just now—I've had a great many clerks who can be of far more use than she can. It was a mistake having her out to Plessing that time."

She spoke in a reflective tone that had a conclusive quality in it, but the tactless Trevellyan ignored the hint of finality and inquired matter-of-factly: "Why?"