"He doesn't take me out to dinner as other chiefs do," she continued; "yet I hop about like a linnet when he buzzes for me. Why is it?" She gazed across at Thompson challengingly. A look of anxiety began to manifest itself upon his good-natured features. Psycho-analysis was not his strong point. In a vague way he began to suspect that Gladys Norman's devotion to Malcolm Sage was not strictly in accordance with Trade Union principles. "There, get on with your chicken, you poor dear," she laughed, and Thompson, picking up his knife and fork, proceeded to eat mechanically. From time to time he glanced covertly across at Gladys. "As to the Chief's looks," she continued, "his face is keen and taut, and he's a strong, silent man; yet can you see his eyes hungry and tempestuous, Tommy? I can't. Why is it," she demanded, "that when a woman writes a novel she always stunts the strong, silent man?" Thompson shook his head, with the air of a man who has given up guessing. "Imagine getting married to a strong, silent man," she continued, "with only his strength and his silence, and perhaps a cheap gramophone, to keep you amused in the evenings." She shuddered. "No," she said with decision, "give me a regular old rattle-box without a chin, like you, Tommy." Mechanically Thompson's hand sought his chin, and Gladys laughed. "Anyway, I'm not going to marry, in spite of the tube furniture-posters. Uncle Jake says it's all nonsense to talk about marriages being made in heaven; they're made in the Tottenham Court Road." Thompson had, however, returned to his plate. In her present mood, Gladys Norman was beyond him. Realising the state of his mind, she continued: "He's got a head like a pierrot's cap and it's as bald as a fivepenny egg, when it ought to be beautifully rounded and covered with crisp curly hair. He wears glasses in front of eyes like bits of slate, when they ought to be full of slumbrous passion. His jaw is all right, only he doesn't use it enough; in books the strong, silent man is a regular old chin-wag, and yet I fall over myself to answer his buzzer. Why it is, I repeat?" She looked across at him mischievously, enjoying the state of depression to which she had reduced him. Thompson merely shook his head. "For all that," she continued, picking up her own knife and fork, which in the excitement of describing Malcolm Sage she had laid down, "for all that he would make a wonderful lover--once you could get him started," and she laughed gleefully as if at some hidden joke. Thompson gazed at her over a fork piled with food, which her remark had arrested half-way to his mouth. "He's chivalrous," she continued. "Look at the way he always tries to help up the very people he has downed. It's just a game with him----" "No, it's not," burst out Thompson, through a mouthful of chicken and sauté potato. She gave him a look of disapproval that caused him to swallow rapidly.