Dorothy met Eric Whelpton, who had served in the War, during her time working at Blackwells, and fell in love with him. He was fond of her but did not return her feelings. He was a sophisticated young man who had a busy romantic life and he was not attracted to Dorothy's looks. And although she was witty and clever, she was not very experienced in relationships with men. The women undergraduates at Somerville were chaperoned, almost like Victorian girls, and she admitted that she did not know much about men and had noone to go to in the college to advise her. Older women dons were usually spinsters who had dedicated their lives to learning and did not know how to help younger women who had difficulties in mingling with men.
Dorothy liked to flirt, but she did not meet many congenial men, and when she fell in love, she was at sea. Then, Blackwell's changed over to publishing academic books and she decided to leave as she found it unfulfilling. Whelpton had taken a job in France and set up an agency for exchange students, bringing boys from England to France and vice versa. He invited Dorothy to work as his secretary. She told her parents that she would like a complete change, and assured them that her relations with Whelpton would be completely proper, as they would be living in a provincial and old fashioned part of France. She spent some time there, and kept in touch with her parents by letter, telling them of her ongoing but proper friendship with Eric, and she read a lot of detective stories, as her work was not all that busy.
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