CHAPTER XXII
ADJUSTMENTS
As soon as she had parted from John Ogden, Miss Frink went to her study. Her secretary was in his place. Could this possibly be the world of the barren yesterdays? The same world in which she and Leonard Grimshaw had sat at their adjoining desks in this room and opened mail, dictated letters, and considered investments, for so many years? Her welling sense of gratitude gave her a novel attitude of sympathetic comprehension. If her secretary, so long the sole partner and confidant of her days, were suffering now from being to a degree usurped, it would not be surprising. She felt a sort of yearning toward him.
He rose at her entrance, grave and businesslike as usual. She took her customary place beside him, and he seated himself, drawing toward him the morning’s mail.
“Never mind that now, Grim. We will attend to it this afternoon, if I can keep awake.” She gave a little laugh.
He glanced around at her. Miss Frink, flushed and laughing, unmindful of the mail! From bad to worse!
“The gayety of last evening too much for you?” he responded, with a gravity so portentous as to be a rebuke.
“I suppose so. Say, Grim, how did Goldstein get in here?”