There was no further stopping or talking until at last we reached the imposing entrance of the Near Oriental Shipping Agency offices. I noticed that the Governor’s level eyebrows rose a trifle as he looked at the indicator of the fares before paying the driver. Yes, I am sure that many fifteen shillings’ worth of taxi-drive haven’t seemed as long. I only hope this florin’s worth was as endless to him as it was to me! Then, just as I was turning away, my employer surprised me by saying brusquely but quite nicely, “Miss Trant, you must do just as you like in the matter of—of which we’ve been speaking. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. I am sorry if I did—You understand that?” “Oh, of course,” I said, all meekness again. And then I set my teeth before I ran up the stairs into the typists’ dressing-room and prepared to face the eyes of my three friends, Miss Robinson, Miss Holt and Miss Smith. CHAPTER VI WHAT THEY SAID In the dressing-room, where Miss Robinson was rinsing out the sooty basin before washing her hands in it, Miss Holt “smarming” her hair-net down over her little brown chocolate of a head, and Miss Smith tearing yet another leaf out of the inevitable book of _papiers poudrés_, the silence that met me was quite as death-like as if the girls had just been pulled up by Mr. Dundonald’s “_Talk_-ing, ladies!” Talking? I didn’t need to be told that, _from_ the moment they’d seen, out of the landing window, the last of that taxi in which the Governor and his private clerk had driven off, _to_ the moment they had heard my returning footstep on the stairs, they had done nothing _but_ talk about me and my incredible, my epic lunch. As I drew the hat-pins from the admired new hat, I prepared for a hurricane of comments and questions. None came. Not one of the girls seemed to have a word to say to me! Perhaps they thought they would hear more by seeming not too eager. (That’s rather Miss Robinson’s style of “drawing out” her companions.) Perhaps they considered the subject too vast for immediate discussion. Perhaps, for they are all good-natured girls, they had come to the conclusion that it wasn’t fair to “rag” me about it—that I might be feeling too utterly nervous and flurried over the unexpected (?) event. They didn’t even ask me whether I had enjoyed myself! I even saw them, distinctly, avoid looking at me. Only Miss Holt’s eyes seemed drawn, as if in spite of herself, to the flowers I was taking out of my coat to put in water in the grimy jam-jar on the dressing-table that so often holds Smithie’s bunch of violets; and it was Miss Holt who breathed an involuntary— “I say, what lovely carnations!” “Do have some,” I said, as a matter of course, dividing the cluster and holding out half to her. “Oh, no. I wouldn’t deprive you for the world, Miss Trant,” murmured Miss Holt, stiffly drawing back. I realized from her tone that she considered I had made a mistake.