CHAPTER VIII THE ENGAGEMENT IS ANNOUNCED! “Ten past three, by Jove; later than I thought again,” muttered my employer as we reached the office again. “And I’ve got all those letters to get through yet.... Miss Trant, I shall have to ask you to come straight through to my room, please, and take these down at once, as I’m off early this afternoon.” So, still in my hat and coat, I walked straight through to Mr. Waters’ own office, sat down at the clerk’s table, and stripped off my gloves to the afternoon’s work. (It’s alarming to see how “twice-on” white gloves become impossible in London. I’m afraid quite a lot of my hard-earned ten pounds a week will go on those items alone, now that I’m constrained to lunch at these haunts of the well-dressed!) All through the stress of following the Governor’s top-speed dictation with my scurrying shorthand, I was conscious of the bulge of that newly-bought ring—heavy as a door-knob, it seemed now!—on my engagement finger, and shooting its arrogant glances of orange and emerald and rose-colour over the dull pages of my pad. I was glad that it had not had to be displayed at once in the dressing-room; glad of the respite of my hour’s toil. But that seemed to come to an end before I had even begun to set my teeth, mentally, to the next ordeal. —“_and beg to remain, gentlemen, yours, etc._—Yes; that’ll do, Miss Trant, thank you,” came the Governor’s dismissal. I put back my chair and stood up. Now for it! Now for the announcement of this engagement! I supposed that I need not _begin_ by saying a word to those three other girls. I should only have to walk over to my typing-table, sit down and open my machine, and the flash of the electric light on those marvellous stones above the keyboard would draw three pair of eyes upon me at once. Should I have to answer that clamouring gaze, or would the girls put it into questions of so many words? “Miss Trant?—Look, girls!—I say, tell us, tell us? It’s not a joke? It’s an engagement ring all right? You’re not trying to have us on, now? Are you going to tell us——?” Whichever way it happened, it was going to be perfectly awful. Never mind. It had got to be. It was part of the price of that five hundred pounds, of Jack’s salvation. “What’s the matter, Miss Trant?” asked the Governor, with a quick glance up at me as I passed his chair. “Nothing, thank you. I am going to let the others know, now, about this”—I moved that detested ring on my hand into another challenging flash. “And I suppose you will require me to-morrow at lunch again?” “No—yes—that is——About telling the others of this engagement of ours,” took up Mr. Waters unexpectedly. “Would you, by any chance, prefer that I did that myself?”