o mute her mirth with a ridiculous dab of pink
cambric.

Thompson looked crestfallen. He had turned just in time to see
Malcolm Sage re-enter his room.

Three sharp bursts on the buzzer brought Gladys Norman to her feet.
There was a flurry of skirt, the flash of a pair of shapely ankles,
and she disappeared into Malcolm Sage's room.

II

"It's a funny old world," remarked Gladys Norman that evening, as
she and Thompson sat at a sheltered table in a little Soho
restaurant.

"It's a jolly nice old world," remarked Thompson, looking up from
his plate, "and this chicken is It."

"Chicken first; Gladys Norman also ran," she remarked scathingly.

Thompson grinned and returned to his plate.

"Why do you like the Chief, Tommy?" she demanded.

Thompson paused in his eating, resting his hands, still holding
knife and fork, upon the edge of the table. The suddenness of the
question had startled him.

"If you must sit like that, at least close your mouth," she said
severely.

Thompson replaced his knife and fork upon the plate.

"Well, why _do_ you?" she queried.

"Why do I what?" he asked.

She made a movement of impatience. "Like the Chief, of course." Then
as he did not reply she continued: "Why does Tims like him, and the
Innocent, and Sir James, and Sir John Dene, and the whole blessed
lot of us? Why is it, Tommy, why?"

Thompson merely gaped, as if she had propounded some unanswerable
riddle.

"Why is it?" she repeated. Then as he still remained silent she
added, "There's no hurry, Tommy dear; just go on listening with your
mouth. I quite realise the compliment."

"I'm blessed if I know," he burst out at last. "I suppose it's
because he's 'M.S.,'" and he returned to his plate.

"Yes, but _why_ is it?" she persisted, as she continued mechanically
to crumble her bread. "That's what _I_ want to know; why is it?"

Thompson looked at her a little anxiously. By nature he was inclined
to take things for granted, things outside his profession that is.

"It's a funny old world, Tommikins," she repeated at length, picking
up her knife and fork, "funnier for some than for others."

Thompson looked up with a puzzled expression on his face. There were
times when he found Gladys Norman difficult to understand.

"For a girl, I mean," she added, as if that explained it.

Thompson still stared. The remark did not strike him as illuminating.

"It may be," she continued meditatively, "that I like doing th