It faded almost instantly as a picture fades from a screen. Only the official mask remained. Yet as he turned to depart, the gleam of satisfaction lingered in his eyes. He had made his small bid for amusement, and he had not bid in vain.
The monotonous clicking of the typewriter continued through the summer silence as the secretary pursued her task with erect head and compressed lips. With machine-like precision she tapped out the long, learned sentences, reading them mechanically, transmitting them with well-trained accuracy, aloof, uncritical, uninterested. She did not lift her eyes from her work again for a full hour.
Page after page was covered and laid aside. The Cathedral clock chimed and struck again. Then, in a quarter of an hour, there came the booming of a heavy gong through the house. Frances Thorold finished her sentence and ceased to work.
Her hands fell upon her lap, and for the moment her whole frame relaxed. She sat inert, as one utterly exhausted, her eyes closed, her head bowed.
Then, very sharply, as though at a word of rebuke, she straightened herself and began to set in order the fruits of her morning’s work. She had laboured for five hours without a break, save for the brief interlude of Montague Rotherby’s interruption.
At the opening of the door she rose to her feet, but continued her task without turning. The Bishop of Burminster had a well-known objection to any forms of deference from inferiors. He expressed it now as he came forward to the table at which she had worked for so long.
“Why do you rise, Miss Thorold? Pray continue your task. You waste time by these observances.”
She straightened the last page and made quiet reply. “I think I have finished my task for this morning, my lord. In any case it is luncheon-time.”
“You have finished?” He took up the pile of typescript with eagerness, but in a moment tossed it down again with exasperation. “You call that finished!”
“For this morning,” repeated Frances Thorold, in her quiet, unmoved voice. “It is a lengthy, and a difficult, piece of work. But I hope to finish it to-night.”