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situation.
    “What am I to do about her?” thought Leonie. “What am I to do?”
    At first she consoled herself with the idea that Sir James might have exaggerated things. Kingsley Stour might not be the unreliable adventurer Sir James evidently chose to think him. His connection with Claire might not be the disaster it had been represented to be.
    But on this aspect Leonie felt she could not conscientiously build much hope. For, whatever the facts, she herself was here to represent her employer’s point of view. In duty bound, she must assume that it was in Claire’s best interests not to become deeply involved with the handsome young surgeon.
    On the other hand, the first idea of the cable now seemed most distasteful, and to savor unpleasantly of spy reporting.
    “It will have to be a letter, sent off at Gibraltar,” Leonie thought. “Something in which I can soften the one unwelcome fact of Kingsley Stour’s presence here. By then I may even have seen enough to modify my own view and make some sort of consoling suggestion to Sir James.”
    If, on his own initiative, he chose to fly out to join the ship at any later port of call, that would be his own affair. But certainly, Leonie decided, it was too early to send him an S.O.S. before they were out of sight of England.
    Hardly had she arrived at even this negative decision when Claire—flushed, starry-eyed and slightly out of breath—herself returned.
    “Hello!” she greeted Leonie a trifle too effusively. “It’s wonderful outside! I mean”—perhaps she remembered suddenly that it was raw and wintry—”it’s so exhilarating, in the wind, on the upper desk.” Then she caught sight of herself in the mirror and, laughing, put her hands to her cheeks and exclaimed. “My! what a color I have. It must be the wind.”
    “I hope you didn’t get too cold.” Leonie strove to make that sound natural, and not as though she in any way queried Claire’s rather artless deception.
    “Oh, no. I’m perfectly warm—feel!” And Claire’s warm hand clasped Leonie’s with disarming friendliness. “And, Leonie—I can call you Leonie, can’t I?”
    “Of course!”
    “Leonie, there’s something I want to make clear. You’re making this trip as my friend. Really my personal friend, I mean. I don’t want you even to mention anything to anyone about your being in my father’s office. Not to anyone. Just to please me.”
    “But, my dear girl”—Leonie was both amused and touched—”I don’t think that’s necessary at all, though it’s sweet of you to think of it. I am one of the girls in your father’s office, and there isn’t the least reason for me to pretend—”
    “No—please!” The other girl was both coaxing and imperious, and suddenly Leonie saw why her father found it so difficult to oppose her. “I have a special reason. And, anyway, you are my friend. Let’s just leave it at that. You haven’t mentioned any other situation to anyone, have you?”
    “Well, no.—At least—” Leonie recalled her first brief conversation with Mr. Pembridge—”Yes, I think I mentioned it to Mr. Pembridge. The Senior Surgeon, you remember. The one I—I knew in hospital.”
    “Oh, what a pity!” Claire frowned. “Well, perhaps it doesn’t matter. He isn’t likely to mention it to—”there was the faintest hesitation before she said, “anyone.” And Leonie was immediately and disquietingly sure that it was specially Kingsley Stour who was not to know that anyone in Sir James’ employment was on board.
    Possibly, she thought a little cynically, he needed reassuring. But aloud she simply said,
    “I won’t insist on going about making my position clear. But don’t expect me to make any actual misstatement if I am asked questions.”
    “Of course not. But he—I mean, no one—is likely to ask questions.—Listen, that must be the gong for dinner. Shall we go? You look lovely in that dress.”
    “So do you in yours,” Leonie replied warmly.