"Oh! But what a gorgeous sort of Life for a woman, Leslie!" cried the younger girl, her face suddenly alight. "Fancy spending her time making things like that! Things that are going to make a difference to the whole world! Instead of her just 'settling down' and embroidering 'duchesse sets,' and sitting with tea-cups, like Uncle Hugh's 'Lady parishioners,' and talking to callers about servants; and operations! Oh, oh, don't you want to take her job?"
"I'm not especially keen on one job more than another. And my old lady would be rather upset if I did leave her in the lurch," said Leslie, more unselfishly than her chum suspected. The truth was that this much disapproved-of Leslie had resigned a congenial post because it might mean what Gwenna loved. "I told the Aeroplane Lady about you," she added. "And she'd like you to go down and interview her at the Factory next Saturday, if you'd care to."
"Care? Of course I'd care! Aeroplanes! After silly buildings and specifications!" exclaimed Gwenna, clasping her hands in her grey linen lap. But her face fell suddenly as she added, "But—it's an hour's run from London, you say? I should have to live there?"
"'Away from Troilus, and away from Troy,'" quoted Leslie, smiling. "You could come back to Troy for week-ends, Taffy. And I'll tell you what. It's no bad thing for a young man who's always thought of a girl as being planted in one particular place, to realise suddenly that she's been uprooted and set up in quite another place. Gives him just a little jerk. By the way, is there any fresh news of Troilus—of the Dampier boy?"
And Gwenna, sitting there with troubled eyes upon the roses, gave her the history of that afternoon's adventure. She ended up sadly, "Never even said 'Good-bye' to me!"
"Getting nervous that he's going to like you too well!" translated Leslie, without difficulty. "Probably deciding at this minute that he'd better not see much more of you——"
"Oh, Leslie!" exclaimed the younger girl, alarmed.
"Sort of thing they do decide," said Leslie, lightly. "Well, we'll see what it amounts to. And we'll wire to-morrow to the Aeroplane Lady. Or telephone down to-night. I am going to telephone to Hugo Swayne to tell him I don't feel in the mood to have dinner out to-night again."
"Again?" said Gwenna, rather wistfully, as they rose from the arbour and walked slowly down the path by the peach-houses. "Has he been asking you out several times, then?"
"Several," said Leslie with a laugh. She added in her insouciant way, "You know, he wants to marry me now."