"Well, it was not so much the girls that I was thinking of. The House Committee needs somebody to help with the accounts. I remember your excellent work with the Nursing Association. Mrs. Cartwright is a conscientious lady but no mathematician. It would be of immense service both to us and to the home if you would sometimes help her with the books."
"I'll ask Mother. I dare say I could."
He smiled at her. "I am sure that Mrs. Hammond could not mind. It depends upon what you would like. I don't want to urge more work upon you if your time is full."
She shrugged her thin shoulders. "I don't do anything much. I'll ask Mother——"
A hat-stand would have been more responsive.
He changed the conversation.
"Have you noticed much change in Marshington since the war ended?"
"Change? Here? No, I don't think so. People are still washing dishes to be dirtied at the next meal, and sitting at the same stools to add up other people's accounts, and giving tea parties to be envied by other men's wives."
"That's rather a pessimistic view of it, isn't it?"
"Is it? Yes, perhaps it is. I'm very silly I know." She laughed nervously. "Of course it's not as bad as that. But sometimes—one wonders—you know, I don't know how the war could have made a difference. It was only a grocery shortage here, and an influx of officers and the arrival of the Graingers."