“She’ll come back all right,” Bertha said. “We could steam it open.”
“Isn’t that a Federal offence?”
Bertha said, “I suppose so,” pushed back her swivel chair, walked to the door of the outer office, and said to Elsie Brand, “Elsie, dear, connect up the electric plate and put on the teakettle. Bertha wants to steam open a letter.”
Elsie Brand brought in a portable electric plate, plugged it into a wall socket, put on a little kettle of water.
“Anything else?”
“No. That will be all for the present.”
Bertha made certain the plate was getting hot, then moved over to sit in the chair across from Belder, ignoring, for the moment, her swivel chair. “You’re all churned up about this thing, aren’t you?”
“I’ll say I am. I can’t help it. It’s too much — Mabel leaving, this business with Nunnely, then Mrs. Goldring and Carlotta swooping down on me— If I only knew whether Mabel had walked out. It’s the uncertainty on that point that’s such a strain. If she’s left me and would come right out and say so, that would at least relieve the uncertainty.”
Bertha walked over to her waste-basket, bent down and started rummaging through the contents; abruptly she straightened, holding a somewhat crumpled piece of printed paper in her hand.
“What’s that?” Belder asked.