"It's quite out of the question. The Hostel is for my staff, and it would be very unsuitable for me, as Director of the Midland Supply Depôt, to go there too." "Bless me! are they as exclusive as all that?" exclaimed Joanna flippantly. "Well, do as you like, but if you come back here, you're not to go near your father, with a cold like that." Miss Bruce, almost before she knew it, found herself exchanging a glance of indignation with Char's maid, but she was conscious enough of her own dignity to look away again in a great hurry. "You will certainly want to go straight to bed when you come in," she said to Char, pointedly enough. "We will have everything ready and a nice fire in your room." "Thank you, Brucey." Char bestowed her rare smile upon the little agitated secretary, and moved across the hall. She felt very ill, with violent pains in her head and back, and shivered intermittently. Leaning back in her heavy coat, under the fur rug, Char closed her eyes. She reflected on the dismay with which Miss Delmege would greet her, and wondered rather grimly whether any further members of her staff would have succumbed to the prevailing illness. She knew that only a will of iron could surmount such physical ills as she was herself enduring, and dreaded the moment when she must rouse herself from her present torpid discomfort to the necessity of moving and speaking. As she got out of the car, Char reeled and almost fell, in an intolerable spasm of giddiness, and her progress up the stairs was only made possible by the remnant of strength which allowed her to grasp the baluster and lean her full weight upon it as she dragged herself into her office. She was, however, met with no wail of condolence from the genteel accents of Miss Delmege. Grace Jones, composedly solid and healthy-looking, said placidly: "Good-morning. I'm sorry to say that Miss Delmege is in bed with influenza." "In bed!" "She had a very restless night and has a temperature this morning." "She was all right yesterday." "She had a sore throat, you know," remarked Grace, "but she didn't at all want to give in, and is very much distressed." Char raised her heavy eyes. "You all seem to me to collapse like a pack of cards, one after another. I think _my_ bed would prove a bed of thorns while there's so much work to do, and so few people to do it. In fact, I can't imagine wanting to go there." She made an infinitesimal pause, shaken by one of those violent, involuntary, shivering fits. Miss Jones gazed at her chief. "I think I can manage Miss Delmege's work," she observed gently. "Oh, I shall have to go through most of it myself, of course," was the ungrateful retort of the suffering Miss Vivian.