Milly is celebrating her seventeenth birthday at the Tropicana, a night club which features singing and dancing, in the company of her father and Dr. Hasselbacher. Captain Segura comes over to their table, invites himself to sit down, and behaves in an overbearing manner. Wormold wants to strike Segura, but he doesn’t have the nerve. A young woman seated behind their table sizes up the situation squirts Segura in the back with a soda siphon. Segura leaves, to the relief of the others.

Wormold and the young woman dance. He learns that her name is Beatrice Severn and that she is his new secretary. She plans to move into his office immediately along with a radio operator named Rudy who is also traveling with her.

1

Beatrice arrives at Wormold’s office the next morning to start her work. Determined to learn Beatrice’s marital status, Milly gets her to reveal that she is divorced and that her husband “sort of faded away” (97). Beatrice goes out to buy a safe for the office.

2

A group of workmen struggle to carry the new safe up to the office while Rudy, who will be Wormold’s assistant accountant, arrives and settles in.