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course I don’t know if she has also applied to any other agencies—”
    â€œI’m on my way,” said Victoria. “Where is she?”
    â€œThe Savoy.”
    â€œAnd what’s her silly name? Tripp?”
    â€œClipp, dear. Like a paper clip, but with two P’s—I can’t think why, but then she’s an American,” ended Miss Spencer as if that explained everything.
    â€œMrs. Clipp at the Savoy.”
    â€œMr. and Mrs. Hamilton Clipp. It was actually the husband who rang up.”
    â€œYou’re an angel,” said Victoria. “Good-bye.”
    She hurriedly brushed her suit and wished it were slightly less shabby, recombed her hair so as to make it seem less exuberant and more in keeping with the role of ministering angel and experienced traveller. Then she took out Mr. Greenholtz’s recommendation and shook her head over it.
    We must do better than that, said Victoria.
    From a No. 19 bus, Victoria alighted at Green Park, and entered the Ritz Hotel. A quick glance over the shoulder of a woman reading in the bus had proved rewarding. Entering the writing room Victoria wrote herself some generous lines of praise from Lady Cynthia Bradbury who had been announced as having just left England for East Africa… “excellent in illness,” wrote Victoria, “ and most capable in every way. …”
    Leaving the Ritz she crossed the road and walked a short way up Albemarle Street until she came to Balderton’s Hotel, renowned as the haunt of the higher clergy and of old-fashioned dowagers up from the country.
    In less dashing handwriting, and making neat small Greek “E’s, she wrote a recommendation from the Bishop of Llangow.
    Thus equipped, Victoria caught a No. 9 bus and proceeded to the Savoy.
    At the reception desk she asked for Mrs. Hamilton Clipp and gave her name as coming from St. Guildric’s Agency. The clerk was just about to pull the telephone towards him when he paused, looked across, and said:
    â€œThat is Mr. Hamilton Clipp now.”
    Mr. Hamilton Clipp was an immensely tall and very thin grey-haired American of kindly aspect and slow deliberate speech.
    Victoria told him her name and mentioned the Agency.
    â€œWhy now, Miss Jones, you’d better come right up and see Mrs. Clipp. She is still in our suite. I fancy she’s interviewing some other young lady, but she may have gone by now.”
    Cold panic clutched at Victoria’s heart.
    Was it to be so near and yet so far?
    They went up in the lift to the third floor.
    As they walked along the deep carpeted corridor, a young woman came out of a door at the far end and came towards them. Victoria had a kind of hallucination that it was herself who was approaching. Possibly, she thought, because of the young woman’s tailor-made suit that was so exactly what she would have liked to be wearing herself. “And it would fit me too. I’m just her size. How I’d like to tear it off her,” thought Victoria with a reversion to primitive female savagery.
    The young woman passed them. A small velvet hat perched on the side of her fair hair partially hid her face, but Mr. Hamilton Clipp turned to look after her with an air of surprise.
    â€œWell now,” he said to himself. “Who’d have thought of that? Anna Scheele.”
    He added in an explanatory way:
    â€œExcuse me, Miss Jones. I was surprised to recognize a young lady whom I saw in New York only a week ago, secretary to one of our big international banks—”
    He stopped as he spoke at a door in the corridor. The key was hanging in the lock and, with a brief tap, Mr. Hamilton Clipp opened the door and stood aside for Victoria to precede him into the room.
    Mrs. Hamilton Clipp was sitting on a high-backed chair near the window and jumped up as they came in. She was a short birdlike sharp-eyed little woman. Her right arm was encased in plaster.
    Her husband introduced