THEY GO HOME 575

like it. I think-I've been feeling rotten too, all strung
up, you know."

"My dear/' said Miss Morrison, who had been very
tactful, "if I hadn't wept buckets last night at that play,
I don't know what I'd be doing to-night."

"Listen," cried Miss Matfield, jumping to hei feet and
smiling damply. "I've made up my mind now. Yes, I
have. It's serious. Listen. I'm going to work properly,
and I'm going to get a better job and make more
money."

"You're not going to leave your present job, are you?"

"The Lord forbid! If I did, the scheme wouldn't work
at all. No, but I'm going to tell them there isn't any-
thing in the office, or connected with it, I won't and can't
do, if they'll only give me a chance. I'm going to be
really in business, not just sort of hanging on there. I've
got a jolly good chance because my firm's very busy now
and we're short-handed, and the man who really sold all
the veneers and inlays has just left us—"

"Not the man you told me about, the fascinating
one?"

"Yes," Miss Matfield continued hurriedly. "He's gone,
and that means there'll be an awful lot to do and they'll
have to get new people. Well, I'm going down to Angel
Pavement in the morning-and I needn't go if I don't
want, because I got the morning off when I thought I
was going away for the week-end—"

"Wait a minute. Do you mean to say that youVe
actually got the morning off and yet you're going all the
same? You do? My dear, it sounds desperate."

"Yes, I am. And I'm going to Mr. Dersingham, and
I shall tell him that I believe I could do anything that
any man could do-and I don't care if it's going round