"Have you finished copying those awful details of the defective armour plates?" she asked, suddenly dropping her voice so that it barely reached the other side of the table.
"Only last night," he answered; "it was very hard work, and so ridiculous! It went into the box with the rest of the finished work this morning."
"Did the Admiral engage a new typewriter?" she inquired.
"No; he says that he has nearly finished."
"I am so glad," she said. "You have had no temptation to flirt then with anybody else, have you?"
"To flirt--with anybody else! Oh! Miss--I mean Blanche. Do you think that I could do that?"
His little round face shone with sincerity and the heat of the unaccustomed wine. His eyes were watering a little, and his spectacles were dull. The girl looked at him in amusement.
"I am afraid," she said, with a sigh, "that you used to flirt with me."
"I can assure you, B--B--Blanche," he declared earnestly, "that I never said a word to you which I--I did not hon--hon--honestly mean. Blanche, I should like to ask you something."
"Not now," she interrupted hastily. "Do you know, I fancy that we must be getting too confidential. That odious man with the eyeglass keeps staring at us. Tell me what you are going to do when you leave here. You can ask me--what you were going to, afterwards."
Mr. Blatherwick grew eloquent and Blanche was sympathetic. It was quite half an hour before they rose and prepared to depart.
"I know you won't mind," Blanche said to him confidentially, "if I ask you to leave the hotel first; the people I am with are a little particular, and it would scarcely do, you see, for us to go out together."
"Certainly," he replied. "Would you l--like me to leave you here--would it be better?"
"You might walk to the door with me, please," she said. "I am afraid you must be very disappointed that your friend did not come. Are you not?"
Mr. Blatherwick's reply was almost incoherent in its excess of protestation. They walked down the room together. Harcutt and Wolfenden look at one another.
"Well," the former exclaimed, drinking up his liqueur, "it is a sell!"
"Yes," Wolfenden agreed thoughtfully, with his eyes fixed upon the two departing figures, "it is a sell!"
Wolfenden sent his phaeton to the station with Harcutt, who had been summoned back to town upon important business. Afterwards he slipped back to the hall to wait for its return, and came face to face with Mr. Blatherwick, who was starting homewards.