He seemed to be in deep thought, and his concentrated stare almost made her wish she had worn a bra. Charles was patiently awaiting Sarah's arrival. H... couldn't keep his mind off of her. She was like no other woman he had ever met. She was brilliant, witty, beautiful, and actually talked to him. She was everything he wanted in a woman. She proved she could hold an intelligent conversation and that she actually had a fun personality. If there was one thing he couldn't stand it was women who were. "Oh yes a large number of your employees are my customers," Mary smiled.I explained that I would have to rebuild the server and that it would takeme four or five hours. "You can't take me offline for that long," Mary said. "Don't worry," I told Mary, "I can do most of it this afternoon whileyou're still up and running. I'll only need to take it down for about anhour after you close up shop tonight."I placed a call to the London branch office requesting to talk to the ITmanager. "Hello, this is. "She looked at me, and I nodded again."And you were trying to make sure everybody knew that it hadn't gotten the best of you," she continued. "I get that too. And then all your talk about how the Program is a good thing, and you believe in it, and you want to support it. Now that I do NOT understand, but I can understand that you'd be willing to put up with a lot for a cause you believe in, however noodle-brained that cause is."I didn't care for "noodle-brained," but I just nodded. We could. I had already gathered from Margaret that her mother was drinking much less these days. When Em began to slide her mother had at least partly found her feet again, pulled herself together to face adversity. She was still insulated from the harsher realities by gin and old Alice, but she'd learned to make do without Em's blanket protection.I broached the question of Elvestone Hall's finances over sherry, striking while my enthusiasm was still at its peak. Lady H looked dumbfounded that I should.