“That’s the idea,” he said, turning a little to look at me while I stared straight at the big white-and-blue buses lumbering up the Strand, but saw, clearer than the traffic, the faces of Miss Robinson, Miss Holt, and Smithie wearing that partly contemptuous, but more angry, expression with which I suppose a decent Trades-Unionist on strike might be entitled to look down upon a blackleg. “Yes, of course it’s for you to wear at once. What else?”
“And—to show the others?”
“Of course!” He looked still more surprised; a little impatient, too. I suppose he felt that again an irritating spoke was being thrust into the well-oiled wheel of his plan.
“I am to show it to them and let them know, in that way, that I am supposed to be engaged to you?”
He answered this with another question.
“Tell me, Miss Trant, have you been having any unpleasantness in the office about this—coming out to lunch with me?”
“N-no,” I said. “Of course,” I added more quickly, “it’s been awkward! You could not expect it not to have been awkward—at least, for me!”
“Ah? Made awkward for you by those girls—what?”
“No! Oh, no!” I fibbed swiftly. For again I could conclude his comment with that relentless “Well, then, they can go!” And I couldn’t have the girls sacked, calmly as I felt I could have seen them all three strangled an hour before. “Only—a little difficult to explain.”