"That's rather ridiculous, don't you think?" she said, trying to disguise her furtive annoyance. "You can hire a substitute through any typewriting agency on the basis of three dollars a day."
"Yes, and I can buy two cigars for a nickel, but I shouldn't want to smoke them."
She clicked the keys of her machine idly. "That is hardly a fair comparison. You can get any number of competent girls for three dollars."
He rested his chin on his upturned palm. "But, my dear Miss Robson, I happen to want you."
She thought of any number of cheap, obvious retorts that might have been flung back at his straightforward admission, but instead she said, with equal frankness:
"That's just what I don't understand."
He threw her a puzzled look and the usual placid light in his eyes quickened to resentful impatience.
"Is that a necessary part of the contract, Miss Robson?"
She caught her breath. His tone of annoyance was sharp and unexpected. There was a suggestion of Flint's masculine arrogance in his voice. She felt how absurd was her cross-examination of him, of how absurd, under the circumstances, would have been her cross-examination of anybody ready and willing to give her work to do and an ample wage in the bargain, and yet, for all the force of his reply, she knew it to be a well-bred if not a deliberate evasion.
"You mean it is none of my business, don't you?" she contrived to laugh back at him.