As Mary had guessed, Helen patted her hand over her mouth to hide a yawn.
"How's Aunt Patty and Aunt Cordelia?" she asked.
Mary sighed to herself.
"What can I do?" she thought. "If I say, 'Helen, you know you're not happy. Folks never are unless they are doing something useful,' she would only think I was trying to preach to her. But if I don't say anything—and things go wrong—"
One of the accountants entered—the elder one—with a sheaf of papers in his hand. On seeing the visitor, he drew back.
"Don't let me interrupt you," whispered Helen to Mary. "I'll run in and see Burdon for a few minutes—"
Absent-mindedly Mary began to look at the papers which the accountant placed before her—her thoughts elsewhere—but gradually her interest centred upon the matter in hand.
"What?" she exclaimed. "A shortage as big as that last year? Never!"
The accountant looked at her with the same quizzical air as an astronomer might assume in looking at a child who had just said, "What? The sun ninety million miles away from the earth? Never!"
"Either that," he said, "or a good many bearings were made in the factory last year—and lost in the river—"
"Oh, there's some mistake," said Mary earnestly. "Perhaps the factory didn't make as many bearings as you think."