e said. "It's my hotel."

"It may be your hotel," said Dorothy, resuming the walk, "but I don't
care to go there in a blouse and a skirt to be stared at."

"Who'll stare at you?"

"Not at me, at my clothes," she corrected.

"Then we'll go to the grill-room," he replied with inspiration.

"That might be----" She hesitated.

"You're not going home until you have something to eat," he announced
with determination. "You look all used up," he added.

Dorothy submitted to the inevitable, conscious of a feeling of content
at having someone to decide things for her. Suddenly she remembered
Marjorie Rogers' remarks. What was she doing? If any of the girls saw
her they would---- She had done the usual thing, sent a telegram to
her mother to say she should be late, and was dining out with her chief
on the first day---- Oh! it was horrible.

"Would you--would you?"--she turned to John Dene appealingly,--"would
you mind if I went home," she faltered. "I'm not feeling--very well."
She gulped out the last words conscious of the lie.

"Why sure," he said solicitously. "I'm sorry."

To her infinite relief he hailed a taxi.

"I'll come along and see you safe," he announced in a matter-of-fact
tone.

"Oh, please no," she cried, "I'd much sooner----" She broke off
distressed.

Without a word he handed her into the taxi.

"Where am I to tell him?" he enquired.

"Douglas Mansions, Chiswick, please," gasped Dorothy, and she sank back
in the taxi with a feeling that she had behaved very ridiculously.

CHAPTER V

JOHN DENE LEAVES WHITEHALL

I

"Come," shouted John Dene irritably.

The door opened and Mr. Blair entered. John Dene swung round from his
table and glared at him angrily.

"I tried to telephone," began Mr. Blair.

"Well, you can't," snapped John Dene, "receiver's off. Your boys have
been playing dido all morning on my 'phone."

"I'm sorry if----"

"That don't help any. Why don't you stop 'em? Seem to think I'm a
sort of enquiry bureau."

Dorothy bent low over her notes to hide the smile she could not
restrain at the sight of the obvious wretchedness of Mr. Blair.

"Sir Lyster would like you to step round----"

"Well, I won't; tell him that," was the irascible reply.

"He wants you to meet Sir Harold Winn, the chief naval constructor,"
explained Mr. Blair.

"Tell him to go to blazes and take his constructions with him. Now
vamoose."

Mr. Blair hesitated, glanced at John De