"Nearly one o'clock, Miss Vivian."
"Oh, good heavens! Just bring me the Belgian files, will you? and then you'd better go to lunch."
"I can quite well go later," said Miss Delmege eagerly. "I—I thought perhaps you'd be lunching out today."
"No," drawled Char decisively; "in spite of the inducement of the new car, I shan't leave the office till I have to go to the Convalescent Homes. I'll send for some lunch when I want it."
Miss Delmege went to her own lunch with a vexed soul.
"I do wish one could get Miss Vivian to eat something," she murmured distractedly to her neighbour. "I know exactly what it'll be, you know. She'll sit there writing, writing, writing, and forget all about food, and then it'll be two o'clock, and she has to see the M.O. of Health and somebody else coming at three—and she'll have had no lunch at all."
"Doesn't she ever go out to lunch?"
"Only on slack days, and you know how often we get them, especially now that the work is simply increasing by leaps and bounds every day."
"Couldn't you take her some sandwiches?" asked Mrs. Bullivant from the head of the table. "I could cut some in a minute."
"Oh, no, thank you. She wouldn't like it. She hates a fuss," Miss Delmege declared decidedly.