lowered lashes.

"Is that what you came here to say?" demanded John Dene.

"I--I came to see Dorothy, and now I must run away," she cried, jumping
up. "I've got an appointment. Good-bye, Mr. Dene. Thank you for
asking me in;" and she held out her hand, which John Dene took as a man
takes a circular thrust upon him.

A moment later Marjorie had fluttered out, closing the door behind her.

"Well, that's given him something to think about," she murmured, as she
walked down the stairs. "Wessie must have me down to stay with her.
He's sure to get a title;" and she made for the Tube, there to join the
westward-rolling tide of patient humanity that cheerfully pays for a
seat and hangs on a strap.

For nearly an hour John Dene sat at his table as Marjorie had left him,
twirling in his mouth a half-smoked cigar that had not been alight
since the early morning. His face was expressionless, but in his eyes
there was a strange new light.

The next morning when Dorothy arrived at the office, she found Sir
Bridgman North with John Dene, who was angry.

"Just because somebody's lost a spanner, or a screw-driver, they're
raising Cain about it. Look at all these," and he waved a bunch of
papers in front of Sir Bridgman.

"It's a way they have in the Navy. We never lose sight of anything."

"Except the main issue, winning the war," snapped John Dene.

"Oh, we'll get on with that when we've found the spanner," laughed Sir
Bridgman good humouredly.

"I don't want to be worried about a ten cent spanner, and have a couple
of letters a day about it," grumbled John Dene, "and I won't have it."

"What I used to do," said Sir Bridgman, "was just to tell them that
everything possible should be done. Then they feel happier and don't
worry so much. Why I once lost a 12-inch gun, and they were quite nice
about it when I told them that somebody must have put it aside for
safety, and that it had probably got mislaid in consequence. I never
found that gun. You see, Dene," he added a moment later, "we indent
everything--except an admiral, and it doesn't matter much if he gets
lost."

John Dene grumbled something in his throat. He was still smarting
under the demands from the Stores Department to produce forthwith the
missing article.

"Now I must be off," said Sir Bridgman, and with a nod to John Dene and
a smile to Dorothy he departed.

All the morning John Dene was restless. He seemed unable to
concentrate upon anything