_Norie_ (looking at her wrist-watch): "Violet has very kindly promised to stay with mother till ten.... I can give you an hour, though I must take a few minutes off that for the firm's business as I haven't been here much for three days..." (They talk business for twenty minutes, during which Norie says: "It's really _rather_ odd, how those clothes change you! I feel vaguely compromised with a handsome young man bending over me, his cheek almost touching mine!"--and Vivie retorts "Oh, _don't_ be an ass!") _Norie_: "So you really _are_ going to take the plunge?" _Vivie_: "I really _am_. As soon as it suits your convenience, Vivie Warren will retire from your firm and go abroad. You must either replace her by Beryl Clarges or allow Mr. Vavasour Williams" (Honoria interpolates: "_Ridiculous_ name! How did you think of it?") "to come and assist in the day-time or after office hours. You can say to the winds that he is Vivie's first cousin, remarkably like her in some respects.... Rose Mullet is engaged to be married and is only--she told me yesterday with many blushes--staying on to oblige us. Lilian Steynes said the other day that if we were making any changes in the office, much as she liked her work here, her mother having died she thought it was her duty to go and live with her maternal aunt in the country. The aunt thinks she can get her a post as a brewery clerk at Aylesbury, and she is longing to breed Aylesbury ducks in her spare time.--There is Bertie Adams, it's true. There's something so staunch about him and he is so useful that he and Praed and Stead are the three exceptions I make in my general hatred of mankind..." _Norie_: "He will be very much cut up at your going--or seeming to go." _Vivie_: "Just so. I think I shall write him a farewell note, saying it's only for a time: I mean, that I may return later on--dormant partnership--nothing really changed, don't you know? But that as Rose and Lilian are going, Mrs.--what does she call herself, Claridge?"--(Norie interpolates: "Yes, that was her idea: she doesn't want to blazon the name of Clarges as the symbol of Free Love, 'cos of the dear old Dean; yet Claridge will not be too much of a surrender and is sure to invoke respectability, because of the Hotel")--"Mrs. Claridge, then, is coming in my stead--He's to help her all he can--and my cousin, who is reading for the Bar, will also look in when you are very busy. I shall, of course, see about rooms in one of the Inns of Court--the Temple perhaps. I have been stealthily watching Fig Tree Court. I _think_ I can get chambers there--a man is turning out next month--got a Colonial appointment--I've put my new name down at the lodge and I shall have to rack my brains for references--you will do for one--or perhaps not--however that I can work out later. Of course I won't take the final plunge till I have secured the rooms. Meantime I will use my bedroom here but promise you I will be awfully prudent..."