Fuller swung round and faced the Alderman.
"I'd like to have the sort of thing you've just alluded to, specified. I'm Supervisor of this staff, and I've nothing against Miss Marchrose."
"As you have just been reminded," pointedly said the Alderman, also becoming heated, "the question rests ultimately with the directors."
"Then my position here is a farce," the Supervisor retorted.
"Anything but that, Mr. Fuller," said Edna earnestly, and with the evident intention of laying a soothing hand upon his arm.
Fuller almost backed into the wall in his avoidance of it.
"Indeed," said Lady Rossiter pleadingly, "no one minimises your position here, nor the responsibility that rests upon you with regard to the staff. But you force me to say something that I would much, much rather leave unsaid."
Sir Julian wondered whether it would be of any use to ask her to do so, and decided that it would not.
"I used to hear about this poor creature years before she ever came here. It isn't the first time that there's been—trouble."
Sir Julian's eyes almost involuntarily met those of the Alderman as this pregnant announcement fell upon the air. He interposed in a level voice: