"But what?" John Dene rapped out the words with a peremptoriness that startled Marjorie. "But when you got lost----" She hesitated. "Got what?" "I mean when you disappeared," she added hastily, "then I knew." "Knew what?" Marjorie no longer had any doubts about John Dene's interest in Dorothy. He had swung round his chair, and was now seated directly facing her. "You know she worried," continued Marjorie, "and she got pale and----" Again she paused. John Dene continued to stare in a way that made her frightened to look up, although she watched him furtively through her 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.