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"She can do typing and shorthand."

"Can she? Are you sure?"

"Well, she said so. And why shouldn't she?"

"Because, darling, she's got what the Americans call dishpan hands. I had plenty of opportunity for studying them at the station, and my opinion is that she's never been anybody's secretary but may have been somebody's cook."

"I dare say she has. She's had a dreadful life. Oh, Mother, do try and think kindly of her; she's been terribly unhappy. Her husband's dead and her little boy's mentally deficient. She's had to work in order to keep him and send him to a special school. I'm dreadfully sorry for her."

"And that is why you engaged her as your secretary?"

Lesley flushed and did not answer.

"Well, all I can say," began Iris, but she said nothing more because at that moment the front doorbell rang. They could hear its iron tongue through all the open doors of the house.

"I'll go and answer it," said Lesley, uncoiling her long legs from among the legs of her chair.

"No, don't. Wait and see if Ashplant goes."