CHAPTER XIXHilary reached the office in the little New Jersey town at noon the next day, and prepared to take up the dropped threads with a courageous heart. But the more than ten weeks’ holiday, even in the dull season, seemed to have had the effect upon her work of water that closes smoothly over a sunken vessel. John Spaulding had been perforce gracious with his imperative sister-in-law, and Hilary had had her trip. But Grace Spaulding was not here to act as intermediary now, and the full unpleasantness that her inconveniencing him had caused him was awaiting Hilary.
On her desk were some forty disputed letters; fully half of them should have been answered weeks ago. And in the office where old Kraut still grunted and mumbled, a dapper young man, whose favourite word was “efficiency,”
