"Please ask Captain Trevellyan to come up here."
The messenger disappeared thankfully and Miss Delmege retreated relievedly to her corner.
Char leant back again in her capacious chair, a sheaf of papers, at which she only cast an occasional glance, before her.
She was not at all averse to being found in this attitude, which she judged to be most typical of herself and her work, and for an instant after Captain Trevellyan's booted tread had paused upon the threshold she affected unawareness of his presence and did not raise her eyes.
"... I am in receipt of your letter of even date, and would inform you in reply...."
"Oh, John! So you've come for an official inspection?"
"Since you're never to be seen any other way," he returned, laughing, and grasping her hand.
"I ought to send you away; we're in the midst of a heavy day's work."
"Don't you think you might call a—a sort of truce of God, for the moment, and tell me something about this office of yours? I'm much impressed by all I hear."
Miss Delmege, judging from her chief's smile that this suggestion was approved of, brought forward a chair, and acknowledged Captain Trevellyan's protesting thanks with a genteel bend at the waist and a small, tight smile.