"You can't make an invidious distinction of that sort, Edna. It would be impossible."
"But she looks very tired," said Edna smoothly. "She has certainly been doing too much. We can put it on that score."
"Who has been objecting to the hours that Miss Marchrose puts in?" demanded Fairfax Fuller bluntly.
Edna's little smile admirably blended a protest at the question and a quiet determination to leave it unanswered.
"Because," said Fuller, "if you'll be good enough to tell that person to address his or her complaint to me, Lady Rossiter, I will deal with it in the proper way. I never yet heard of a good worker being sent off duty early because a slack one didn't like the sight of over-work."
"Come, come, Fuller," said the Alderman uncertainly.
Fairfax Fuller turned a black gaze upon him that actually caused the old man to move his chair backwards.
"Leave it alone, Edna," said her husband. "If there's jealousy amongst the staff, Fuller is quite right in saying that he's the person to adjust it. They had no business to appeal to you."
"You force me to speak plainly," said Lady Rossiter. "It isn't only a little jealousy, though there is that as well. But—to put things exactly as they are—the staff doesn't like the habit that Miss Marchrose has fallen into of staying on overtime till all hours, and then being taken home. And, frankly, I don't think you can blame them. That sort of thing isn't done. It makes talk at once."
"Evidently."