It is disconcerting to believe that you are the possessor of one kind of temper—a cold, deadly, on-the-spot temper—which cuts through the insignificant flurries of other people like a knife through butter, and then to find a sloppy explosiveness burst from you unaware.
Mr. Travers had never dreamed that in the town hall itself he could ever be led to lose a thing he had in such entire control as his temper. He did not lose it when the blushing Mr. Belk had the audacity to stop him in mid-career, on his way to his sanctum through No. 7, the outer office of his assistant clerks, though they were, as a body, strictly forbidden to address him while passing to and fro. Mr. Belk was so ill advised as to say:
"If you please, sir, it's four o'clock, and Miss Waring hasn't been out to lunch yet." Mr. Travers merely ran his eye over Mr. Belk as a fishmonger runs his eyes over vulnerable portions of cod laid out for cutting, and brought down his chopper at an expert angle.
"Since when, Mr. Belk," he asked, with weary irony, "has Miss Waring's lunch been on your list of duties?"
Then he passed swiftly into his office and faced Stella, closing the door behind him. Temper shook him as a rough wind shakes an insignificant obstacle. He could not hold it; it was gone. It blew inside out like a deranged umbrella. He glared at Miss Waring. There was nothing in her slight, bent figure, with its heavy, brown hair neatly plaited in a crown about her head, which should have roused any town clerk to sudden fury.
"It's abominable," Mr. Travers exclaimed, bringing his trembling hand down with a bang upon Stella's table, "how women behave!"
Stella said out loud, "One hundred pounds, ten shillings, and sixpence," and then looked up at her employer. She asked very quietly who had vexed him. There might have been a fugitive gleam of laughter at the back of her eyes, but there were shadows under them that made her look too tired for laughter.
"You, of course," he cried. "How are we ever to get through with our work if you won't eat? It's so silly! It's so tiresome! It's so uncalled for! Why are you doing these wretched lists now?"
"Because," said Stella—and now the laughter ran out at him unexpectedly and tripped him up—"the town clerk has a meeting at five o'clock at which these statistics must be at hand to justify him in having his own way!"
"Put them down!" said Mr. Travers savagely. Stella laid down her pen with the ready obedience which can be made so baffling when it proceeds from an unconsenting will. "Now go out and get something to eat," he went on, "while I do the wretched things. And don't let this occur again. If you have too much to do,—and I know the correspondence gets more and more every day,—mention it. We must get some help in."