ching, and cried genially:

"Well, old Tomkins, what's the matter with you? You look as if
something was sitting pretty heavy on your chest!"

"It is!" said Val, and Delia's heart went a little excursion on its own
accord. _Was_ he going to say that he was _engaged_?

"Good news, I hope, eh, Lessing?" cried Mr Gordon, and for the fraction
of a second Val hesitated.

"Er--yes. I suppose--that is, of course, it is very good indeed. I've
been made a director."

Everybody exclaimed, everybody enthused, everybody congratulated, with
the exception of Delia, who asked lazily: "What is a director?" and
yawned when she was told. Mr Gordon showed the sympathy of
understanding, but after putting many questions, and listening to
halfhearted replies, he frowned, and delivered himself of an honest
criticism.

"You're not half as pleased as you ought to be, Lessing! A man of your
age ought to be thankful to be in such a position. A start of fifteen
hundred a year--in such a firm too. Good, safe, solid people. No fear
of them going in for speculation and landing you in the bankruptcy
court. Humanly speaking you're safe from anxiety for the rest of your
life."

"Er--yes. That's just it." Lessing said vaguely, but his friends
understood. It was not the first time that he had rebelled in their
hearing; not the first time by many that he had sighed for the vagrant's
lot.

"He doesn't want to be safe, bless you! That's just what gets him on
the raw!" Terence said grinning. "He wants to be a fire-and-thunder
swashbuckler, out on the pathless wilds."

"What is a swashbuckler?" asked Delia, and Val laughed, and said:

"The very opposite to a director in a black coat and tall hat, Delia.
Think it out for yourself! I only wish I had the chance."

Delia looked thoughtful. She was apportioning fifteen hundred pounds on
the upkeep of her future home. She decided on a small flat and a
runabout car, and rather thought that the drawing-room should be pink.
Mrs Gordon said seriously:

"Dear Val, you must get the better of these foolish ideas! They are
spoiling your life. You have so much that other men want, that it seems
really wicked to be discontented because you have not--trouble! Oh, my
dear boy, it will come soon enough! You ought to be thankful!"

"But it's not trouble, Mrs Gordon! I want trouble no more than any
other man. It's danger that fascinates me--adventure--the thrill of the
unknown. It was bor