"Victoria's had five secretaries in the last month," she said. "And they've none of them been able to stand it a week, and they were older women than you," then she went out, banging the door behind her.
"What an unpleasant woman," thought Millie, then buried herself again in her work.
Her other interruption came half an hour later. The door opened and there came in a man of medium height, bald and with a bushy moustache so striking that it seemed as though he should have either more hair on his head or less over his mouth. He had twinkling eyes and was dressed in grey. He came across the room without seeing Millie, then started with surprise.
"Good heavens!" he said. "A girl!"
"I'm Miss Platt's new secretary," she said.
"And I'm Miss Platt's family physician," he said through his moustache. "My name's Brooker." He added smiling, "You seem in a bit of a mess there."
She must have looked in a mess, the papers lying in tangled heaps on every side of her; to herself she seemed at last to be evoking order.
"I'm not in so much of a mess as I was an hour ago," she said.
"No, I daresay." He nodded his head. "You look more efficient than the last secretary who cried so often that all Miss Platt's correspondence looked as though it had been out in the rain."
"What did she cry about?" asked Millie.