"The paradoxes of time travel have been greatly exaggerated," Mr. Hawkins said. "Perhaps a genealogist would be able to clear up the question."
Milly rose to her full five-foot height, suddenly furious. "You don't care if I just vanish all of a sudden! All that you care about is keeping yourself out of a lot of bother!" She turned on her heel, walked to the door, and added: "After I've helped to fill forty orders every working day for the past three years!"
Milly stalked out and slammed the door behind her. Then she stopped, just outside the door, waiting for a chain reaction to occur. It did, about five seconds later.
Mr. Hawkins popped through the door with a shout: "Where's that girl?" He was through the reception room and halfway down the hall when Milly called him back.
"Here I am," she said sweetly.
He grabbed her arm and yanked her into his office.
"You know," he said, "I've been thinking about those poor, unfortunate people in the past, too. Now that you mention it, I believe we should do something for them." He wiped his forehead.
"You've been thinking about a poor, unfortunate manager right here in the present," Milly retorted, sure of her position now. "All of a sudden, you've figured out what it will mean if I vanish because my grandmother never had any children. You realize that if I've never existed, all of a sudden Hartshorne-Logan will have thousands of complaint letters, lawsuits about orders over the past three years. You're thinking about what's going to happen to your position, if you're to blame for all those customers not getting their merchandise."
Mr. Hawkins turned away until he got his face under control. "We'll talk about that later," he said mildly at last. "Let's agree that everyone will be happier if we straighten up matters. And don't you think that just we two should do the straightening up ourselves? It'll be simpler if—uh—other officials don't hear about this."