If I had ever supposed that the girl had taken the position of her uncle’s secretary merely as a girlish whim, or in some emergency until a permanent secretary could be secured, I was swiftly disillusioned. There was nothing of the amateur in the way her supple fingers flew over the keys. She had evidently had training in a business college; and her attitude towards Nealman was simply that of a secretary towards her employer. She leaned back as if waiting for orders.
“You can go, if you like, Edith,” Nealman told her. “I’m going to talk awhile with Killdare, here, and you wouldn’t be able to work anyway.”
She got up; and she threw me a smile of welcome and friendliness as she walked out the study door.
CHAPTER IV
Nealman had me take a chair, then seated himself before the window from which he could overlook the lagoon. “I always like to sit where I can watch it,” he told me—rather earnestly, I thought. “I can’t see much of it—just a glimpse—but that’s worth while. The room I’ve designated for your use has even a better view. You can’t imagine, Killdare, until you’ve lived with it, how really marvelous it is—how many colors play in the lagoon itself, and in the waves as they break over the Bridge——”
“The Bridge——”
“That’s the name we’ve given to the natural rock wall that cuts off the lagoon—rather, the inlet—from the open sea,” he explained.
“It’s one of the most interesting natural formations I’ve ever seen,” I told him.