d her toilet. Seated on her bed, Nancy brushed at
her long, sleek hair, keeping it spread as a veil before her face.
Dreda waited in vain for a glance of sympathy, or understanding, but it
never came, even when Susan had crept softly from the room and the
constraint of her presence was removed. Nancy finished brushing her
hair, and rose to her feet in the lightest, most unperturbed of
fashions:

"Got any pins you can spare?"

Nancy was celebrated for the number of pins which she used in her
toilet. Things wouldn't fasten without them, she declared. She was
fairly bristling with pins, so that her most ardent adorers moderated
their embraces, mindful of the scratches which had been their reward in
days of inexperience. Dreda eagerly selected half a dozen of her most
cherished fancy-headed pins, and handed them across the bed.

"Of course. As many as you like. I say, Nance, I'm sorry to have made
a scene. I _could not_ help it!"

"Oh, don't apologise. I like a good row now and then. Not for myself--
it's too much trouble--but it's amusing to listen to other people when
they get excited. They give themselves away so delightfully."

Dreda flushed, and knitted her brows.

"I wasn't at all excited in this case. I was angry--_righteously_
angry! It's one's duty to protest against mean, underhand actions."

"Such as wanting the best positions for ourselves?"

"Certainly not. That is only natural ambition--laudable ambition. The
mean thing is to try to oust someone else--your own best friend, when
you know she could do it better than you!"

"Yes!" mused Nancy thoughtfully. "That does sound mean ... This sub-
editor post is going to be so difficult that it ought certainly to go to
the right person. A careful, methodical, machine-like sort of creature,
who will never forget or let others forget. The girls are slack enough
about regular work, and will be a hundred times worse about an extra,
and The Duck is a tartar about punctuality. It's going to be a problem
to please them and `keep the peace.' But you have had a magazine at
home, so you know all about it. Susan has had no experience."

Nancy had seated herself on her bed once more, her hands clasped round
her knees, her lips slightly apart, showing a glimpse of the golden bar
round the front teeth; her long, Eastern-looking eyes met Dreda's
without a blink, yet for some mysterious reason Dreda felt her cheeks
flush and a jarring doubt awoke in he