"Your letter worried her. She thought that the Hostel sounded so uncomfortable."
"So it is. But, after all," said Char, torn between a desire to show John how very much she was enduring in a good cause, and at the same time how little she heeded such external conditions, "after all the work is what really matters. It's for the sake of the work I put up with what poor Brucey thinks are hardships."
"But are they really necessary?"
"What do you mean?" said Char, displeased. "It certainly isn't possible for a house built like the Hostel to be either as roomy or as convenient as Plessing is. A certain amount of discomfort is practically unavoidable."
"Dear me! that's very hard on all of you. Don't the others find it trying? They have to be there all the time, don't they?"
"What others?" was the freezing inquiry of the Director of the Midland Supply Depôt.
Trevellyan looked at her in surprise, and replied quite simply: "The other workers, of course."
"Oh, I really don't know. I naturally never see anything of them, except at the office; but, of course—well, I suppose they're used to very much that sort of thing at home."
"Surely not. I was really thinking," Trevellyan remarked with some superfluity, "of Miss Jones."
"You and my mother appear to find some recondite quality in Miss Jones which I'm unable to discover!" exclaimed Char, laughing a little. "Of course she's a lady, but really, as far as work goes—which is, of course, all that matters just now—I've had a great many clerks who can be of far more use than she can. It was a mistake having her out to Plessing that time."