‘I see you can work quickly as well as carefully,’ he said.
‘I will do my best to satisfy you, sir,’ she answered.
He looked at her, and saw that her face seemed flushed. That, no doubt, was owing to the heat of the room where she had been working. He pushed a ledger and a pile of typewritten sheets towards her.
‘I want those entered by hand in the ledger,’ he said. ‘You can use that table over there in the window. When that is finished you can go.’
For another half-hour the two worked on at their separate tables. The girl never once raised her eyes from her task, but sat with one hand following down the list of names and figures, while with the other she entered them in their due places in the ledger. But her employer more than once looked up at her, and noted, as he had noted before, the decision and quickness of her hands, and, as he had not noted before, the distinction of her profile. She was remarkably like her handsome brother; she was also like the picture of one of the Rhine-maidens in an illustrated edition of the Rheinegold. But he gave less thought to that than to the fact that he had evidently secured an efficient secretary.
He came to the end of his day’s work before her, and rose to go.
‘You can leave the ledger on this table when you have finished,’ he said.
She raised her eyes for a half-second.
‘Yes, sir,’ she said.
‘Your brother tells me you are as devoted to books as he,’ said Keeling.