"Why on earth not? What could be more ladylike, more--simple, more altogether suitable?" "You see I have to wear black there." "What an extraordinary idea. _Why?_" "Well they asked me to. I don't know. I believe it's the fault of my predecessor. They told me she _rustled_ and wore all kinds of dresses----" "I see--a series of explosions." "On silk foundations." "But why should they assume that you would do the same?" "I don't know. It's an awful nuisance. You can't get black blouses that will wash; it will be awful in the summer; besides it's so unbecoming." "There I can't agree. It would be for me. It makes me look dingy; but it suits you, throws up your rose-leaf complexion and your golden hair. But I call it jolly hard lines. I'd like to see the governor dictating to me what I should wear." "It's so expensive if one can't wear out one's best things." "It's intolerable. Why do you stand it?" "What can I do?" "Tell them you must either wear _scarlet_ at the office or have a higher _screw_." "It isn't an office you see. I have to be so much in the surgeries and interviewing people in the waiting-room, you know." "Yes--from dukes to dustmen. But would either the dukes or the dustmen disapprove of scarlet." "One has to be a discreet nobody. It's the professional world; you don't understand; you are equals, you two, superiors, pampered countesses in your offices." "Well I think it's a beastly shame. I should brandish a pair of forceps at Mr. Hancock and say 'scarlet--or I leave.'" "Where should I go? I have no qualifications." "You wouldn't leave. They would say 'Miss Henderson wear purple and yellow, only stay.' I think it's a reflection on her taste, don't you Jan?" "Certainly it is. It is fiendish. But employers _are_ fiends--to women." "I haven't found that soh." "Ah you keep yours in order, you rule them with a rod of iron." "I do. I believe in it." "I envy you your late hours in the morning." "Ah-ha--she's had a row about that." "_Have_ you Mag?" "Not a row; simply a discussion." "What happened?" "Simply this. The governor begged me--almost in tears--to come down earlier--for the sake of the discipline of the office." "What did you say?" "I said Herr _Epstein_; what can I do? How do you suppose I can get up, have breakfast and be down here before eleven?" "What did he say?" "He protested and implored and offered to pay cabs for me." "Good Lord Mag, you are extraordinary." "I am not extraordinary and it is no concern of the Deity's. I fail to see why I should get to the office earlier than I do. I don't get my letters before half-past eleven. I am fresh and gay and rested, I get through my work before closing-time. I work like anything whilst I am there." "And you still go down at eleven?" "I still go down at eleven." "I _do_ envy you. You see my people always want me most first thing in the morning. It's awful, if one has been up very late."