"In a bath. He hadn't had one before and——"
"Not had a bath!" she cried. "If you try to pull my leg like that,
Tommy, you'll ladder my stockings."
"But I'm not," protested Thompson. "I met the Chief in a Turkish bath, and he went into the hottest room and crumpled, so I looked after him, and that's how I got to know him."
"Of course, you couldn't have happened to mention that it was a Turkish bath, Tommy, could you?" she said. "That wouldn't be you at all. But what makes him do things like he did for Miss Blair?"
"I suppose because he's the Chief," was Thompson's reply.
Gladys Norman sighed elaborately. "There are moments, James Thompson," she said, "when your conversation is almost inspiring," and she relapsed into silence.
For the last half-hour Thompson had been conscious of a feeling of uneasiness. It had first manifested itself when he was engaged upon a lightly grilled cutlet; had developed as he tackled the lower joint of a leg of chicken; and become an alarming certainty when he was half-way through a plate of apple tart and custard. Gladys Norman's interest in Malcolm Sage had become more than a secretarial one.
Mentally he debated the appalling prospect. By the time coffee was finished he had reached an acute stage of mental misery. Suddenly life had become, not only tinged, but absolutely impregnated with wretchedness.
It was not until they had left the restaurant and were walking along
Shaftesbury Avenue that he summoned up courage to speak.
"Gladys," he said miserably, "you're not——" then he paused, not daring to put into words his thought.