and persuading him to make arrangements at once for her to learn
shorthand and typewriting with a view to becoming the private secretary
of a well-known editor of one of the leading newspapers.

The editor in question was a distant connection, and quite willing to
take her if she proved herself capable, recognising, through his skill
at reading character, that she might eventually prove invaluable in
other ways than mere letter-writing.

Dudley, seeing no farther than the fact of the City office, set his
face resolutely against it as long as he could; but, of course, in the
end Hal carried the day. Then came the shock of the knowledge that
Lorraine had gone on the stage; and if, as had been said before, he did
not actually picture the lurid exit to the lower regions Hal gave him
credit for, he was sufficiently upset to have wakeful nights and many
anxious, worried hours.

And to make it worse, Hal would not even be serious.

"Oh, don't look like that, Dudley!" she cried; "we really are not in
any immediate danger of selling our souls to the Prince of Darkness.
You dear old solemnsides! Just because Lorraine is going on the stage,
I believe you already see me in spangles, jumping through a hoop. Or
rather 'trying to', because it is a dead cert. I should miss the hoop,
and do a sort of double somersault over the horse's tail."

Dudley shut his firm lips a little more tightly, and looked hard at his
boots, without vouchsafing a reply.

"As a matter of fact," continued the incorrigible, "you ought to