"I must! I'm compelled to! It's _too_ cruel, but the doctor simply won't answer for the consequences if I go back to London in my present state. But work I _must_. One would go quite, quite mad if one wasn't working--thinking about it all, you know." "Major Willoughby is--er--in England, isn't he?" "Thank God, yes!" exclaimed Lesbia, with a fervour that would have startled her husband considerably. "My heart bleeds for these poor wives and mothers. I simply thank God upon my knees that I have no son! When one thinks of it all--England's life-blood--" Char did not share her mother's objection to eloquence expended upon the subject of the war, but she cut crisply enough into this _exaltée_ outpouring. "One is extremely thankful to do what little one can," she said, half-unconsciously throwing an appraising glance at the files and papers that were littered in profusion all over the table. "Indeed one is!" cried Lesbia, just as fervently as before. "Work is the only thing. My dear, this war is killing me--simply killing me!" Miss Vivian was not apparently prompted to any expression of regret at the announcement. "As I said to Lewis the other day, I must work or go quite mad. And now this Canteen scheme seems to be calling out to me, and go I must. We've got a building--that big hall just at the bottom of the street here--and I'm insisting upon having a regular opening day--so much better to start these things with a flourish, you know--and the regimental band, and hoisting the Union Jack, and everything. And what I want you to do is this." Lesbia paused at last to take breath, and Char immediately said: "I'm afraid I'm so fearfully busy today that I haven't one moment, but if you'd like my secretary to--" "Not your secretary, but your _entire_ staff, and your attractive self. I want you _all_ down there to help!" "Quite impossible," said Char. "I wonder, Mrs. Willoughby, if you have any idea of the scale on which this Depôt is run?" "_Every_ idea," declared Lesbia recklessly. "I'm told everywhere that all the girls in Questerham are helping you, and that's exactly why I've come. I want girls to make my Canteen attractive--all the prettiest ones you have." "I'm afraid my staff was not selected with a view to--er--personal attractions," said Miss Vivian, in a voice which would have created havoc amongst her staff in its ironical chilliness. "Nonsense, my dear Char! I met the sweetest thing on the stairs--a perfect gem of a creature with Titian-coloured hair. Not in that hideous uniform, either." Miss Vivian could not but recognize the description of her typist. "I don't quite understand," she said. "Do you want helpers on your opening day, or regularly?" "Quite regularly--from five to eleven or thereabouts every evening. I shall be there myself, of course, to supervise the whole thing, and I've got half a dozen dear things to help me: but what I want is _girls_, who'll run about and play barmaid and wash up, you know."