“Buck up, Cis, and eat some really good scrambled eggs with little bits of ham chopped up in them. And then there’s some glass loganberries, hot; and somebody’d been what Mrs. Skinner calls ‘pampering the milk,’ so I got a brown jar of cream for them. _One_ comfort of living in a _ménage_ without any _men_ (a joke, so please laugh) is that we can eat what we _like_, instead of stodging horrible, gristly chops and steaks and potatoes every night of our lives. And I brought in some red ink—not Veuve Emu this time, but really decent Burgundy to cheer us up——” “But, my _dear_—!” protested Cicely, with the scared glance of the business-girl who knows what it costs to eat and drink. “It’s not extravagance. I can afford it.” “You can’t! You can only _just_ manage to scrape along for yourself—and you know your poor darling hat’s awful, and you told me you couldn’t get another—you haven’t managed to put by a penny for ‘extras’—you told me yesterday——” “Ah, yesterday! But I shall have some more money—_now_.” “What?—and you never told me when you came in? What, have Waters and Son actually given you a _rise_?” “Supplementary duties,” I explained briefly, drawing a wooden chair up beside Cicely’s couch and laying a clean towel over it for a tablecloth before I set down the plate of ham-scramble. “Pretty well-paid, too. Yes. I got the job to-day. And,” I concluded with resolution, “I begin it to-morrow.” CHAPTER IV ACCEPTED! “And when do you think the ‘engagement’ had better be announced? At once?” This was what the Governor said to me this morning when I again presented myself at his desk; this time with the timid “acceptance” which, after poor Jack’s desperate appeal, is my only alternative. “At _once_?” I gasped. “Oh, but—How could it? The—well—people would think it so”—I checked a hysterical laugh—“so _funny_!” “Funny? What’s funny about it?” took up the Governor, as sharply as if he didn’t see anything at all odd in the whole situation. But he does. He _must_! What a hateful trick men have of pretending they’re _not_ pretending—when you’re unable to prove, in so many words, that they _are_! People talk about women being more complicated; good gracious! It’s we who are simple and straightforward. What was I to make of the Governor, when he asked me, in quite an annoyed tone of voice, “I suppose men at the heads of offices have become engaged to their employees before now Miss Trant?” “Y-yes—of course—_Become engaged_.”—He was talking now as if _this_ were _that_!—“But not if——” “Not if what?” “Well, not if they have never seen them to speak to!” I explained falteringly. “You see, Mr. Waters, the three other typists in my room——” “Oh! Those girls!” said Mr. Waters casually, and I caught my breath. For in the tone of those two words from the Head of Affairs I heard the rest of his meaning—“If _they_ think it odd—if _they_ make difficulties, they can go, at once.”