re to do whatever you wish," she said with dignity.

With a sudden movement John Dene sprang up and proceeded to pace up and
down the room.

From time to time he glanced at Dorothy, who sat pencil and note-book
ready for the flood of staccatoed sentences that usually accompanied
these pacings to and fro. At length he came to a standstill in the
middle of the room, planted his feet wide apart as if to steady the
resolution to which he had apparently come.

"Say, what's all this worth to you?" he blurted out.

Dorothy looked up in surprise, not grasping his meaning.

"Worth to me?" she queried, her head on one side, the tip of her pencil
resting on her lower lip.

"Yes; what do they pay you?"

"Oh! I see. Thirty-five shillings a week and, if I become a
permanent, a pension when I'm too old to enjoy it," she laughed. "That
is if the Hun hasn't taken us over by then."

"That'll be about nine dollars a week," mumbled John Dene, twisting his
cigar round between his lips. "Well, you're worth twenty dollars a
week to me, so I'll make up the rest."

"I'm quite satisfied, thank you," she said, drawing herself up slightly.

"Well, I'm not," he blurted out. "You're going to work well for me,
and you're going to be well paid."

"I'm afraid I cannot accept it," she said firmly, "although it's very
kind of you," she added with a smile.

He regarded her in surprise. It was something new to him to find
anyone refusing an increase in salary. His cigar twirled round with
remarkable rapidity.

"I suppose I'm getting his goat," thought Dorothy, as she watched him
from beneath lowered lashes.

"Why won't you take it?" he demanded.

"I'm afraid I cannot accept presents," she said with what she thought a
disarming smile.

"Oh, shucks!" John Dene was annoyed.

"If the Admiralty thought I was worth more than thirty-five shillings a
week, they would pay me more."

"Well, I'm not going to have anyone around that doesn't get a living
wage," he announced explosively.

"Does that mean that I had better go?" she inquired calmly.

"No, it doesn't. You just stay right here till I get back," was the
reply, and he opened the door and disappeared, leaving Dorothy with the
conviction that someone was to suffer because, in John Dene's opinion,
she was inadequately paid.

As she waited for John Dene's return, she could not keep her thoughts
from what an extra forty-five shillings a week would mean to her. She
could incre