Lesbia paused at last to take breath, and Char immediately said:
"I'm afraid I'm so fearfully busy today that I haven't one moment, but if you'd like my secretary to—"
"Not your secretary, but your entire staff, and your attractive self. I want you all down there to help!"
"Quite impossible," said Char. "I wonder, Mrs. Willoughby, if you have any idea of the scale on which this Depôt is run?"
"Every idea," declared Lesbia recklessly. "I'm told everywhere that all the girls in Questerham are helping you, and that's exactly why I've come. I want girls to make my Canteen attractive—all the prettiest ones you have."
"I'm afraid my staff was not selected with a view to—er—personal attractions," said Miss Vivian, in a voice which would have created havoc amongst her staff in its ironical chilliness.
"Nonsense, my dear Char! I met the sweetest thing on the stairs—a perfect gem of a creature with Titian-coloured hair. Not in that hideous uniform, either."
Miss Vivian could not but recognize the description of her typist.
"I don't quite understand," she said. "Do you want helpers on your opening day, or regularly?"
"Quite regularly—from five to eleven or thereabouts every evening. I shall be there myself, of course, to supervise the whole thing, and I've got half a dozen dear things to help me: but what I want is girls, who'll run about and play barmaid and wash up, you know."