romance, the knight kills the villain
for making love to the heroine, and then gets down to the same dirty
work himself. Now the 'Chief ought to have been bursting with
volcanic fires of passion for me. He should have crushed me to his
breast with merciless force, I beating against his chest-protector
with my clenched fists. Finally I should have lain passive and
unresisting in his arms, whilst he covered my eyes, ears, nose and
'transformation' with fevered, passionate kisses; not pecks like
yours, Tommy; but the real thing with a punch in them."

"What on earth----" began Thompson, when she continued.

"There should have been a fearful tempest on the other side of his
ribs. I should----"

"Don't talk rot, Gladys," broke in Thompson.

"I'm not talking rot," she protested. "I read it all in a novel that
sells by the million." Then after a moment's pause she continued:

"He saved me from the dragon; yet he doesn't even give me a box of
chocolates, and everybody in Whitehall knows that chocolates and
kisses won the war. When I fainted for him and he carried me into
his room, he didn't kiss me even then."

"You wouldn't have known it if he had," was Thompson's comment.

"Oh! wouldn't I?" she retorted. "That's all you know about girls, Mr.
Funny Thompson."

He stared across at her, blinking his eyes in bewilderment.

"He doesn't take me out to dinner as other chiefs do," she
continued; "yet I hop about like a linnet when he buzzes for me. Why
is it?"

She gazed across at Thompson challengingly.

A look of anxiety began to manifest itself upon his good-natured
features. Psycho-analysis was not his strong point. In a vague way
he began to suspect that Gladys Norman's devotion to Malcolm Sage
was not strictly in accordance with Trade Union principles.

"There, get on with your chicken, you poor dear," she laughed, and
Thompson, picking up his knife and fork, proceeded to eat
mechanically. From time to time he glanced covertly across at Gladys.

"As to the Chief's looks," she continued, "his face is keen and taut,
and he's a strong, silent man; yet can you see his eyes hungry and
tempestuous, Tommy? I can't. Why is it," she demanded, "that when a
woman writes a novel she always stunts the strong, silent man?"

Thompson shook his head, with the air of a man who has given up
guessing.

"Imagine getting married to a strong, silent man," she continued,
"with only his strength and his silence, and perhaps a cheap