“No, I don’t suppose so.”
Mr Murphy looked at Holton and wondered what would become of him. If he had more initiative he might be a wealthy man because of his background (the important thing was background), but he would probably not go very far. He might not even go as far as Mr Murphy had and Mr Murphy had been a success without background. Robert Holton didn’t look as though he cared to be a success.
“Well, don’t let your night life interfere with business,” said Mr Murphy lightly.
“No,” said Holton rising, “I won’t.”
With a nod Mr Murphy dismissed him.
Mr Murphy watched Caroline absently as she typed. Her hair was rather long. It must be a nuisance to help her into a coat, he thought suddenly. That was something he hated to do. Whenever he helped a woman into a coat there was, first, a certain struggle to get her arms into the sleeves. Some women were better than others at this. And then, second, there was the problem of hair. If the woman had long hair it was inevitably caught inside the coat. This meant that her first motion was usually to free her hair and that involved a wild freeing and flinging of the hair which for anyone still posted behind her meant running a risk of becoming entangled. Mr Murphy wondered about these problems as he looked at Caroline’s long dark hair.
He had started to work on his letters (the ones in the business envelopes) when Richard Kuppelton appeared.
“Yes?”
“I’ve got the first part of that report here, the one on aircraft,” said Kuppelton.
“Yes?” Mr Murphy made himself sound cold and official.