As she passed Marjorie she looked up, and Marjorie saw that she was little more than a child, and a not very robust child at that. With Marjorie, to think was to act. "I say! Wait a minute!" she cried, and began to rummage under the cushion of her seat, extracting ultimately a spare raincoat of her own. "You must put this on," she announced to the girl: "you are soaking." She bustled her new protégée into the garment without waiting for permission. Then another thought occurred to her. "I have half an hour to spare," she said. "May I take you anywhere? Nobody"—indicating her employer’s mausoleum-like residence—"will mind." Appealing blue eyes looked up at her. An enormous but attractive mouth broke into a grateful smile. "It’s jolly decent of you," said a voice of incredible childishness. "Are you sure?" "Rather!" said Marjorie. "Will you get inside, or sit by me?" "By you, please." "All right! Come along!" Marjorie cranked her engine, and took her place at the wheel. Her new little friend snuggled down beside her. "You _are_ strong!" she said admiringly. "And yet you don’t look very hefty. Your hands are lovely. How do you keep them so nice, doing this kind of work?" "They are my vanity!" laughed Marjorie. "I sit up half the night trying to keep my nails in order. I wonder if it’s worth while: I sometimes feel inclined to let them rip—for the duration! Where can I take you?" "The Imperial Theatre, if you don’t mind. I have a rehearsal at three, and it’s after that now. I shall get a telling-off, as usual, I suppose. Well, I’m not worrying: such is life!" "Are you on the stage?" asked Marjorie, genuinely thrilled. "Yes. We open in about a month, with a new musical show." "What’s it called?" "I never can remember: they change the title about once a day. Not that it really matters. ’Too Many Girls’ is the latest; and pretty suitable, too! My dear, you simply can’t get men for the theatre nowadays! The good ones have all joined up, and the rotters daren’t walk on. You ought to see our chorus men! They are all about seventy, or else they have one lung, or one rib, or one ear, or something. Still, we carry on somehow. Are you driving a car for war work?" "Yes. I don’t really feel that I ought to be doing it; it’s too much like fun. I was in a canteen at first, but I got rather run down and hard up, and I was offered this job as a chauffeur, so I took it. I think I should go back to the canteen if I could afford it. I never see any soldiers now. At the canteen one could do something for them, poor things." "They’re lambs!" agreed the passenger—"especially the young officers. Are you engaged?" Marjorie, very much occupied in negotiating Piccadilly Circus, nodded. "An officer?" Marjorie nodded again. "My boy’s an officer, too. What’s your name, by the way?" "Marjorie Clegg."