the voice coldly. "Wait, please."

Norah swallowed her feelings and waited.

"Hallo! Hallo! Hallo!--oh, _is_ that you, Norah?" said Jim, his tone
crisp with feeling. "Isn't this an unspeakable machine! And I'm due
in three minutes--I must fly. Sure you can have Hardress? He'll get
to you by the 6.45. Are you all well? Yes, we're all right. Sorry,
I'll get told off horribly if I'm late. Good-bye."

Norah hung up the receiver, and stood pondering. She wished the
telephone had not chosen to behave so abominably; only the day before
Wally had rung her up and had spent quite half an hour in talking
cheerful nonsense, without any hindrance at all. Norah wished she
knew a little more about her new "case"; if he were very weak--if
special food were needed. It was very provoking. Also, there was
Mrs. Atkins to be faced--not a prospect to be put off, since, like
taking Gregory's Powder, the more you looked at it the worse it got.
Norah stiffened her shoulders and marched off to the housekeeper's
room.

"Oh, Mrs. Atkins," she said pleasantly, "there's another officer
coming this evening."

Mrs. Atkins turned, cold surprise in her voice.

"Indeed, miss. And will that be all, do you think?"

"I really don't know," said Norah recklessly. "That depends on my
father, you see."

"Oh. May I ask which room is to be prepared?"

"The one next Captain Garrett's, please. I can do it, if the maids
are too busy."

Mrs. Atkins froze yet more.

"I should very much rather you did not, miss, thank you," she said.

"Just as you like," said Norah. "Con can take a message for anything
you want; he is going to the station."

"Thank you, miss, I have already telephoned for larger supplies," said
the housekeeper. The conversation seemed to have ended, so Norah
departed.

"What did she ever come for?" she asked herself desperately. "If she
didn't want to housekeep, why does she go out as a housekeeper?"
Turning a corner she met the butler.

"Oh, Allenby," she said. "We'll have quite a houseful to-night!" She
told him of the expected arrivals, half expecting to see his face
fall. Allenby, on the contrary, beamed.

"It'll be almost like waiting in Mess!" he said. "When you're used to
officers, miss, you can't get on very well without them." He looked
in a fatherly fashion at Norah's anxious face. "All the arrangements
made, I suppose, miss?"

"Oh, yes, I think they're all right," said Norah, feeling anythi