"Sir Piers is in no immediate danger," said the doctor slowly. "In fact, there is every reason to hope that he is getting better. Otherwise, I suppose, you would hardly contemplate leaving home." "But she's not suggesting leaving home!" cried Miss Bruce. "It's only a case of going backwards and forwards every day." The doctor shrugged his shoulders and glanced at Lady Vivian. "Sir Piers doesn't wish it," said Joanna curtly. "Surely that's reason enough. It distressed him very much, even before he was ill, that she should go and do this office work." "I see. Yes. The ideas of the present day are not very easily assimilated by our generation," said the doctor gently. He had often thought himself that Miss Vivian of Plessing had better have worked with her needle or amongst the poor, as had done the great ladies of his own generation, instead of in a Questerham office. But he had also been rather ashamed of his thoughts, and would not for the world have had them guessed by his pushing, good-natured wife, who was proud to let her two daughters help at the Depôt. "We live in abnormal times," Char said. "I'm not doing the work for my own pleasure, but because the need for workers is desperate. I _can_ do the job I've undertaken, and so far as I can see, there is no adequate reason, unless my father gets very much worse, for me to desert it." "It's not," said Miss Bruce judicially, "as though any one could take her place at the Depôt." "For the matter of that," Trevellyan remarked, with unexpected logic, "it's not as though any one could take her place here." "But that's just it!" cried Char. "I don't do anything at all here. Dr. Prince, you know perfectly well that I don't; we spoke of it the other day. Can you conscientiously tell me that my absence during the day is going to make the slightest difference to my father's case?" "No. Speaking professionally, I can't," said the doctor. Joanna stopped in her walking and looked at him, but it was evident that the doctor had not finished. He cleared his throat and faced Char.