“Well as I say —” Miriam followed the lingering held-in cold vexation of the voice, privately prompting it with informal phrases fitting the picture she held, half-smiling, in her mind, of a moody, uncertain, door-slamming secretary, using the whole practice as material for personal musings, liable suddenly to break into long speeches of accusation. But if they were spoken, they would destroy the thing that was being given back to her, the thing that had made the atmosphere of the room. “It will be the most unbusinesslike thing I’ve ever done; and I doubt very much whether it will answer.”
“Oh well. There’s not any reason why it shouldn’t.” She smiled provisionally. It was not yet quite time to rise and feel life flowing about her in the familiar room, purged to a fresh austerity by the coming and passing of the storm. There was still a rankling, and glorious as it was to sit talking at leisure, the passing of time piled up the sense of ultimate things missing their opportunity of getting said. She could not, with half her mind set towards