The Darts of Cupid: Stories by Edith Templeton Page B

Bayswater Road and going in a straight line to Marble Arch into Oxford Street, with a stop at Selfridges. Our office was situated nearby. The entrance was a shabby, narrow doorway—an entrance of the type used by cleaners and messengers. Once inside, one descended into a basement and into a still deeper basement down two more flights of stairs, where our office spread into majestic proportions and took up the whole floor of the building. It was safer from air attacks than any shelter, and the heated, filtered air and the lighting were provided by machines situated in still further depths. Secretive, unsuspected, and sinister, we spent our working hours in artificial light and air—a make-believe existence akin to that of cut flowers, which appear alive though they are dead.
    Now that the staff had been replenished with new civilian local labor, we received several male additions—some delightful, like a retired English army colonel and a humorous admiral with infallibly good manners; some bizarre, like a former lion tamer, and a porter from Claridge’s. Among the new women, the most likable was Queenie, an ex–chorus girl, greatly in demand for telling the future out of teacups. Our old crowd of four kept close together in the Zone of Interior and during the luncheon hour, but I rarely saw them at night, when they went out with their lovers, and I did not meet them at parties, because I had stopped mixing with our officers.
    About two months after our settling in London, Sergeant Parsons stopped at my table. "I thought you’d like to know, ma’am," he began.
    "Oh yes," I said listlessly. There was precious little I wanted to know in those days, and the stories concerning a little girl called Eve—"Isn’t it strange? Eve, just like you"— had ceased altogether, because my behavior had remained exemplary.
    He said, "The General counts on you to come to Paris with us when we move. You are one of our best, and we can’t afford to lose people like you. But then, a girl wants to look out for herself, and nothing lasts forever."
    I said, "I don’t want anything to last forever, but you know I want to go to France, the same as Claudia and June and Betty."
    "You are so stupid, you women," he remarked. "Don’t you know that when a man is interested in you he’ll always have ways and means to find you?"
    "Charmed, I’m sure. Much obliged," I said.
    "I happened to have a word with Admiral Parker, the old boy," said the Sergeant. "And he’d like to take you along to the British War Office. The English are getting ready to move out, too—the same as our people. And the job would be so much better. You’d have classy work and a much higher salary."
    "Will they be going to France?" I asked.
    "That I cannot say," said the Sergeant, "but it would be worth your while finding out—it won’t be as bad as going to the dentist’s, and it’s all on the ‘old boy’ level, what with the Admiral. He has a very soft spot for you—why, I can’t think. He wants to do you a favor, and you don’t want to hurt him. You run along, and don’t forget that a very nice girl wears shoes to match her purse."
    I did go with the Admiral to St. James’s Square, where I was given two examination papers, and I passed through three interviews unconcernedly, as I had no wish to be found acceptable. When I was dismissed with the phrase "We will let you know in due course," I was certain this meant the same as, "I’ll give you a tinkle soon, one of these days." But the excursion was enjoyable nevertheless, because the Admiral took me afterward to Shepherd’s, where I had never been before and of which I had heard so much from Claudia, June, and Betty. He drank my health with a charming Edwardian gaiety:
    Here’s to you and here’s to me,
And here’s to the girl with the well-shaped knee.
Here’s to the man with his hand on her garter.
He hasn’t got far yet, but he’s a damn good starter.
    Six weeks later, they did let me know. I was