"I mustn't say any more, because I should be divulging official secrets. The other girls are so curious to know what is happening. Bishy, that's Miss Bishcroft, asked me whether John Dene made love to me, and Rojjie is sure that he kisses me." Dorothy rippled off into laughter. "How impertinent of her!" Mrs. West was shocked. "It wasn't impertinence, mother, it was funny. If you could only see John Dene, and imagine him making love to anyone. It really is funny. Sometimes I sit and wonder if he knows how to kiss a girl." "Dorothy, you are----" began Mrs. West. "Why shouldn't we be frank and open about such matters? Every man kisses a girl at some time during his life, except John Dene," she added. "In Whitehall it's nothing but minutes and kisses. Why shouldn't we talk about it? It's helping to win the war. It's so silly to hide everything in that silly Victorian way of ours. If a nice girl meets a nice man she wants him to kiss her, and she's disappointed if he doesn't. Now isn't she?" challenged Dorothy as she perched herself upon the arm of her mother's chair and looked down at her, her eyebrows and mouth screwed up, impertinent and provocative. "I wish you wouldn't talk like that, dear," said Mrs. West, as she regarded her daughter's pretty features. "Why, mother?" she enquired, bending and brushing a swift kiss upon her mother's white hair. "It--it doesn't seem----" she paused, then added rather weakly, "it doesn't seem quite nice." Dorothy jumped up and stood before her mother, smiling mischievously. "And so you don't think I'm quite nice, Mrs. West?" She made an elaborate curtsey. "Thank you very much indeed. At the Admiralty there are quite a lot of young men, and some old ones, too, who don't agree with you," she added, returning to her chair. "But you mustn't say such--such things," protested Mrs. West weakly. "But, mother, when you were a girl and knew a nice man, didn't you want him to kiss you?" "We never thought about such things. We----" "Didn't you want father to kiss you?" persisted Dorothy. "We were engaged, my dear, and your dear father was so----" "But before you were engaged. Suppose father had tried to kiss you. What would you have done?" The girl's eyes were on her mother, mischievous and challenging. A faint blush tinged Mrs. West's cheeks. "I'll tell you what you'd have done, you dear, naughty little mother. You'd have pretended to be shocked, but in your heart you would have been glad, and you'd have lain awake all night thinking what an awful rip you had been." She nodded her head wisely. "Sometimes," said Mrs. West after a pause, "I wish it had not been necessary for you to work. Girls seem so different nowadays from what they were when I was young."