He laughed.  “Good.  I thought you meant in the autumn. ...  To-morrow by all means, if you will.  As a matter of fact we’re frightfully short-handed in the office just now.  Our typist has crocked, and we haven’t another yet, so people have to type their own letters.”

“I can do the typing,” said Gerda, composedly.  “I can type quite well.”

“Oh, but that’ll be dull for you.  That’s not what you want, is it?  Though, if you want to learn about the work, it’s not a bad way ... you get it all passing through your hands....  Would you really take on that job for a bit?”

Gerda nodded.

They were rapid and decided people; they did not beat about the bush.  If they wanted to do a thing and there seemed no reason why not, they did it.

“That’s first-class,” said Barry.  “Give it a trial, anyhow....  Of course you’ll be on trial too; we may find it doesn’t work.  If so, there are plenty of other jobs to be done in the office.  But that’s what we most want at the moment.”

Barry had a way of assuming that people would want, naturally, to do the thing that most needed doing.

Gerda’s soul sang and whistled down the whistling wind.  It wasn’t over, then:  it was only beginning.  The W.E.A. was splendid; work was splendid; Barry Briscoe was splendid; life was splendid.  She was sorry for Kay at Cambridge, Kay who was just off on a reading party, not helping in the world’s work but merely getting education.  Education was inspiring in connection with Democracy, but when applied to oneself it was dull.

The rain was lessening.  It fell on their heads more lightly; the wind was like soft wet kisses on their backs, as they tramped through Merrow, and up the lane to Windover.

3

They all sat round the tea-table, and most of them were warm and sleepy from Sunday afternoon by the fire, but Barry and Gerda were warm and tingling from walking in the storm.  Some people prefer one sensation, some the other.

Neville thought “How pretty Gerda looks, pink like that.”  She was glad to know that she too looked pretty, in her blue afternoon dress.  It was good, in that charming room, that they should all look agreeable to the eye.  Even Mrs. Hilary, with her nervous, faded grace, marred by self-consciousness and emotion.  And Grandmama, smiling and shrewd, with her old in-drawn lips; and Rodney, long and lounging and clever; Jim, square-set, sensible, clean-cut, beautiful to his mother and to his women patients, good for everyone to look at; Barry, brown and charming, with his quick smile; the boy Kay, with his pale, rounded, oval face, his violet eyes like his mother’s, only short-sighted, so that he had a trick of screwing them up and peering, and a mouth that widened into a happy sweetness when he smiled.

They were all right:  they all fitted in with the room and with each other.

Barry said “I’ve not been idle while walking.  I’ve secured a secretary.  Gerda says she’s coming to work at the office for us for a bit.  Now, at once.”