“Then we shall want a fourth chair, father.”
“No, we shan’t. Wilkinson, sit you down and make yourself thoroughly at home. How are you muddling on without me?”
“Do you want the truth?”
“Let’s hear the worst.”
“We’re getting on first class,” announced Wilkinson, his eyes on Harriet, but his words addressed to her father. “Some of them were saying only this evening that it just proved how much could be done by kindness. There hasn’t been a cross word since you left, and not a single member of the staff has had to be reported.”
“You’ll all have a nice job later on,” he prophesied. “Let them get slack and out of control, and it’ll take you months to get ’em well in hand again.”
“How do you like the change, Miss?” asked Wilkinson, accepting the offer of lettuce. “How does business life suit you, may I ask?”
“Nothing to do with her!” interrupted her father sharply. “All she’s responsible for is household duties. I believe in women keeping to their proper sphere. Once they come out of it—”
“The change hasn’t improved your temper, old man.”
He stopped in the act of helping himself to mustard, and stared at his late colleague. “Me?” he said, in a dazed way. “Me, got a temper? Well, upon my word, we live and learn. This is news!”