"Engaged?"
"Of course; we're engaged. I'm engaged to Rutherford Gillingwater, the adjutant-general of this state. You couldn't be my private secretary if I wasn't engaged; it wouldn't be proper."
The earth was only a flying cinder on which he strove for a foothold. She had announced her engagement to be married with a cool finality that took his breath away; and not realizing the chaos into which she had flung him, she returned demurely to the matter of the letter.
"We can't change that letter, because it's signed close to the 'obedient servant' and there's no room. But I'm going to put it into the typewriter and add a postscript."
She sat down before the machine and inexpertly rolled the sheet into place; then, with Ardmore helping her to find the keys, she wrote:
I demand an imediate reply.
"Demand and immediate are both business words. Are you sure there's only one m in immediate? All right, if you know. I reckon a postscript like that doesn't need to be signed. I'll just put 'W. D.' there with papa's stub pen, so it will look really fierce. Now, you're the secretary; you copy it in the copying press and I'll address the envelope."
"Don't you have to put the state seal on it?" asked Ardmore.
"Of course not. You have to get that from the secretary of state, and I don't like him; he has such funny whiskers, and calls me little girl. Besides, you never put the seal on a letter; it's only necessary for official documents."