Her eyes wandered back to Mrs. Fordyce, who sat patiently awaiting her decision. Except for the ugly, curved back, the older woman, in her dainty teagown, might have been a piece of Dresden china, so pink and white were her unwrinkled cheeks, and her features finely chiseled. Her dark, delicately arched eyebrows were in sharp contrast to her snow-white hair. Mrs. Fordyce had a simplicity and charm of manner which endeared her to high and low. As Marjorie encountered the full gaze of her handsome eyes, she almost cried out, so much pathos and hidden tragedy was in their dark depths. She rose impulsively to her feet. “Mrs. Fordyce,” she said, “I will gladly accept, but----wait,” she stumbled in her speech. “Admiral Lawrence dismissed me this morning because--because a valuable paper was missing.” There was a moment’s pause. “Did you steal the paper?” asked Mrs. Fordyce quietly. Marjorie winced, but her eyes never wavered before the other’s calm regard. “No.” The monosyllable was clear and unfaltering. “But Admiral Lawrence believes I did.” Marjorie found the lengthening silence intolerable. Her hands crept up to her coat and she buttoned it, then she commenced putting on her gloves. “When can you come to me?” inquired Mrs. Fordyce finally. “You--you want me?” Marjorie advanced a step, half-incredulous. “After what I’ve just told you?” “I do.” “Oh, you good woman!” With a swift, graceful movement Marjorie stooped and laid her lips to the blue-veined hand resting on the chair arm. “I flatter myself I’m a woman of some perception,” replied Mrs. Fordyce, coloring warmly. “And truth doesn’t always lie at the bottom of a well.” Half an hour later all details of her engagement as chaperon were satisfactorily settled, and bidding Mrs. Fordyce a warm good-night, Marjorie, lighter hearted than she had been in many a day, tripped down the hall and through the front door held open by a deferential footman. As she gained the sidewalk a limousine turned in under the porte-cochère and stopped before the door she had just left. Pausing to readjust her furs, she saw a familiar figure spring out of the motor, and a well-known voice said clearly: “Look out for that step, Miss Fordyce,” and Chichester Barnard caught his companion’s arm in time to save her from a fall as she descended from the motor. Marjorie watched them enter the lighted vestibule, her thoughts in riot. Chichester Barnard’s “business engagement” had not prevented his dancing attendance upon another girl--and she, Marjorie Langdon, was to be that girl’s official chaperon. CHAPTER V GIVE AND TAKE “DOES everything look in order in the dining-room, Duncan?” inquired Mrs. Fordyce anxiously, on her son’s entrance, laying down the magazine she was reading. “Of course it is, dear mother,” he replied, sitting down on the lounge beside her. “You can always trust Perkins to arrange the table decorations to the Queen’s taste. Why so anxious tonight?”