The friendly words slipped out unconsciously, but for some reason her tone and manner made his heart hammer away like that powerful downward passage of the Anvil Chorus. "I'll be good," he managed to say.
Mary hardly heard him.
"I wonder what made me speak like that," she was thinking. "I must be more dignified—or he'll think I'm bold…." And in a very dignified voice indeed, she said, "I must be getting back now. I wish you'd find the contractor and ask him when he'll be through."
She went down the hill alone. On the way a queer thought came to her. I sha'n't attempt to explain it—only to report it.
"Of course it isn't the only thing in life—that's ridiculous," she thought. "But sooner or later … I guess it becomes quite important…."
CHAPTER XXX
A few hours later, Mary was sitting in her office, thinking of this and that (as the old phrase goes) when a knock sounded on the door and the elderly accountant entered.
"We have finished the first part of our work," he said, "that dealing with factory costs. I will leave this with you and when you have read it, I would like to go over it with you in detail."
It was a formidable document, nearly three hundred typewritten pages, neatly bound in hard covers. Mary hadn't looked in it far when she knew she was examining a work of art.
"How he must love his work!" she thought, and couldn't help wondering what accidental turn of life had guided his career into the field of figures.