Guilty at being the owner of this waiting peace, he picked up the telephone to talk to Marion.
"Oh, you! How nice," she said, when at last he had persuaded the Post Office that his intentions were honourable; and the warmth in her voice catching him unawares-his mind being still on white paint-caught him under the heart and left him breathless for a moment. "I'm so glad. I was wondering how we were going to talk to you; but I might have known that you would manage it. I suppose you just say you're Robert Blair and the Post Office gives you the freedom of the place."
How like her, he thought. The genuine gratitude of "I might have known that you would manage"; and then the faint amusement in the sentence that followed.
"I suppose you've seen our wall decoration?"
Robert said yes, but that no one ever would again, because by the time the sun rose it would have gone.
"Tomorrow!"
"The two men who own my garage have decided to obliterate it tonight."
"But-could seven maids with seven mops—?"
"I don't know; but if Stanley and Bill have set their minds on it, obliterated it will be. They were brought up in a school that doesn't tolerate frustrations."
"What school is that?"