All his apprehensions were verified by her utterance. It came in
a most casual voice, despite the dancing delight in her face.
The tones were drawled in the matter-of-fact fashion of statement
that leads a listener to answer without heed to the exact import
of the question, unless very alert, indeed.... This is what she
said in that so-casual voice:
"I'm not speaking loud enough, am I, stenographer?"
And that industrious writer of shorthand notes, absorbed in his
task, answered instantly from his hidden place in the corridor.
"No, ma'am, not quite."
Mary laughed aloud, while Burke sat dumfounded. She rose swiftly,
and went to the nearest window, and with a pull at the cord sent
the shade flying upward. For seconds, there was revealed the busy
stenographer, bent over his pad. Then, the noise of the
ascending shade, which had been hammering on his consciousness,
penetrated, and he looked up. Realization came, as he beheld the
woman laughing at him through the window. Consternation beset
him. He knew that, somehow, he had bungled fatally.
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