She turned, went back through the barrier to a door at the rear, and knocked.
“Come in!” said a voice.
She entered the private office, where a mild little gray-haired man sat at a desk.
“Uncle James isn’t feeling very well,” she said. There was no embarrassment in her manner, nor in the gray-haired man’s. “I want to get a carriage, and I left my purse at home,” she went on. “Can I get ten shillings, Mr. Brown, please?”
He pulled forward a little tin cash box, unlocked it, and took out a ten-shilling note. The girl, bending over his desk, wrote on a slip of paper:
July 8—ten shillings—J. Craig.
The transaction was a familiar one to both of them.
She was a thin young creature with dark gray eyes and bobbed hair cut square across her wide brow. She would have been[Pg 526] pretty, with more color and animation. She might even have been beautiful; but her face was pale and impassive, and she had an air of quiet indifference, like one accustomed to being taken for granted and thankful to have it so.
“Why don’t you drive home with him, Joey?”
“It’s only half past two, Mr. Brown.”