“Of course not. ‘Billy’s’ no class,” said Miss Robinson. “‘William? Ahem! William!’” in a pompous bass voice. “Dark or fair, Miss Trant?”

“Fair.”

[45]

[45]

“M’m. Well, I suppose Miss Trant would pick a fair one, her being such a reel brunette,” commented Miss Holt, “but as for me, I never could take to a fair man. Puts me in mind of weak tea. About as fair ’s the Governor, Miss Trant?”

“Ye-es; just about.”

“Anything for a bit of a change,” said Miss Robinson satirically. “I should have thought you’d have liked another colour to sit opposite to at lunch, after having to have the same sort of thing staring you in the face all the afternoon. However!—no accounting for ’em!... I hope he’s tall, though?”

“Over six foot, I should think.”

“Ah! Well grown, William! Is the young gentleman in the City, may I ask?”

“Yes, he is.”

“Isn’t she a good sort, answering all our impertinent questions like this! One more, Miss Trant, and we won’t bother you. Where are you going to meet him?”

I don’t think she expected that I would answer this. But I said quite frankly, “I am to meet him just outside the front entrance in Leadenhall Street.” And I whisked out of the room to the lift. I didn’t tell the girls “Look out of that window on the other side of the landing and you’ll see him.”

I knew it wasn’t necessary.

[46]

[46]

In two minutes’ time I was being helped into a taxi by the august hand of our Governor himself.

I lifted my head and looked straight up at the landing window. Yes, there they were, all three of them, flattening their noses against the pane. I nodded and smiled with bravado. My three colleagues were too utterly taken by surprise to even smile back at me. The expression on their three faces was even more pronounced than as I had foreseen it. Miss Holt was standing in front, and as we drove away I saw her eyebrows rise to her netted hair, while her mouth dropped open.

I could almost hear the gasp 

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