"Thank Heaven!" piously ejaculated Char, entirely _pour la forme_, since the interviews which cut into her day's work afforded her the only relief she obtained from its monotonous strain. "Then I'll get through these letters at once. Send those to Mrs. Potter; and, Miss Delmege, you can take these--the rest are for the Clothing Department. Miss Jones, kindly deal with these files.... Send for Miss Coll--Mrs. Baker-Bridges, to take down some letters at once." Miss Delmege looked rather disturbed, and remained standing at Char's elbow without speaking. Miss Vivian, as was customary with her when wishing to display absorption in her work, continued to turn over the papers on the table without raising her eyes. At last she looked up and said sharply: "What is it, Miss Delmege? You fidget me very much by standing there in that unmeaning way. Do you want anything?" Miss Delmege cleared her throat nervously. Too well did she know the peculiar note of crisp asperity now sounding in her chief's voice. "I'm afraid the stenographer isn't here today." "And why on earth not?" "She isn't well." "I've had no application for sick leave." "She only telephoned this morning to say that she didn't feel able to come today." Char, with the calculated show of temper with which she greeted any departures from discipline, struck the table with her hand, and made the unfortunate Miss Delmege jump. "I think you've all lost your heads completely while I've been away. Is this office under military discipline or is it not?" The question being purely rhetorical, Miss Delmege attempted no reply to it, and merely drooped the more dejectedly over her sheaf of letters. "You can tell Miss Collins that unless she can apply for sick leave in the proper manner, and with a medical certificate to say that she is unfit for duty, she may consider herself dismissed." Miss Delmege, only too thankful to feel that the Director's wrath was not aimed at herself, hastened to the telephone to deliver the ultimatum. She returned scarlet, and with an air of outraged modesty that made Grace look at her in mild astonishment. Miss Jones's curiosity, however, only received satisfaction that afternoon, at the close of Dr. Prince's interview with Miss Vivian, when he casually remarked: "By the way, that pretty little red-haired typist of yours, the one who got married the other day, paid me a call yesterday." "Then, perhaps, you can inform me why she thought proper to remain away from duty without leave today." "Oh, you'll have her back tomorrow--for a time, anyway." Grace saw Miss Delmege make a hurried plunge into a small stationery cupboard, where she appeared to be searching for something elaborately concealed. "I can't have that sort of playing fast and loose with the work," Char said icily. "If Miss Collins--" "Mrs. Baker-Bridges," the doctor corrected her cheerfully. "If my stenographer can't attend to her work regularly, she is of very little use to me."