He warmed to the possessive "we." "So you know about our warfare," he said.
"More than you think, perhaps. The books you gave me aren't the only things I study. I study the 'Clarion,' too."
"Why?" he asked, interested.
"Because it's yours." She looked at him straightly now. "Can you pull it through, Boss?"
"I think so. I hope so."
"We've lost a lot of ads. I can reckon that up, because I had some experience in the advertising department of the Certina shop, and I know rates." She pursed her lips with a dainty effect of careful computation. "Somewhere about four thousand a week out, isn't it?"
"Four thousand, three hundred and seventy in store business last week."
The talk settled down and confined itself to the financial and editorial policies of the paper, Milly asking a hundred eager and shrewd questions, now and again proffering some tentative counsel or caution. Impersonal though it seemed, through it Hal felt a growing tensity of intercourse; a sense of pregnant and perilous intimacy drawing them together.
"Since you're taking such an interest, I might get you to help Mr. Ellis run the paper when I go away," he suggested jocularly.
"You're not going away?" The query came in a sort of gasp.