“What? Dance? Sure, I like to dance. Why?”
“Oh, I don’t know. I was just thinking, that’s all. I like to dance a whole lot. When I was at college we used to have wonderful dances.”
Robert Holton laughed. “That wasn’t so long ago, when you were at college. Don’t you go out any more?”
“Of course I do. You know I do, all the time, and I’m not trying to get you to ask me out either.”
He laughed at her and that was all.
Caroline looked at him and tried to guess what he was thinking. He was probably thinking that she was very pretty and that he would like to ask her to go out with him. She wouldn’t go out with him, he knew. Not now, not after she had said these things. Later, perhaps, when they had forgotten the words she had said. Caroline sighed as she thought of her own strength and of his weakness.
“Let’s get back to the office,” said Holton.
They walked down a short corridor. At the end of the corridor was the Statistical room. Here a dozen men and women worked at desks. They compiled figures for the executives and the customers and everyone else in the house.
Through a noise of automatic welcomes, Caroline and Robert Holton went into the office. Most of the desks were on the side of the room away from the windows. The windowed end of the room was protected by a railing; behind the railing was Mr Murphy’s desk and at a respectful distance from his desk was Caroline Lawson’s.
“See you later, Bob,” said Caroline and she opened the door of the railing and went into the windowed section of the room. She let the door swing creakily shut and went to her desk. Glancing sideways, she watched Robert Holton go to his desk at the other end of the office. Then she sat down.