The staff perceived as soon as it congregated for the ferocity of the day’s work that there was to be no idleness. William reached the office early and even the least of them understood at once that it was going to be one of his good days. Whatever thought of weariness, whatever listlessness of the night before that any one of them had felt was gone in the instant. Today the utmost would be demanded of them mingled with excitement and some terror. It was doubtful that they would all be at their jobs by night. On William’s good days inevitably someone was fired. The weaker members decided not to go out to lunch. William himself never ate lunch.
“Miss Smith,” William said, “give me all the recent dispatches from China. I want to study them.”
This news from behind the circular desk was telegraphed through the offices and gusts of relief followed. Focus upon China meant focus upon Lemuel Barnard, who had just returned to make his report of the Chinese situation.
The first assistant editor thoughtfully started his search for Lem who at this time of the morning might still be anywhere but certainly not at his desk. Telephone messages began urgently though cautiously to permeate the city. The receptionist in the main entrance, Louise Henry, a pretty auburn-haired girl from Tennessee, stayed by the telephone as much as she dared. She had left Lem somewhere between midnight and dawn at a night club. Shortly before noon, she found him where no one expected him, in bed at his hotel room and asleep. Louise waked him.
“Lem, get over here quick. He’s been studying your dispatches all morning!”
“Oh hell,” Lem groaned and rolled out of bed.
At one o’clock William was delayed. Miss Smith brought in an envelope which she recognized as coming from her employer’s divorced wife and which therefore she was not to open. She took it in at once to William, though fearful as she did so, for he had left orders that he was not to be disturbed. By then Lem was waiting out in the hall with Louise.
“I don’t want to interrupt,” Miss Smith began.
“Well, you have interrupted,” William said.
“This—” Miss Smith faltered. She put the letter on the desk and went out.
William saw at once that it was from Candace. He did not immediately put down the map he was studying. Instead he discovered what he had been looking for, an old camel route from Peking into Sinkiang, and then he put down the map and took up the envelope. So far as he had any contact with Candace she had not changed. The heavy cream paper she always had used when he knew her as his wife, she continued to use. The fine gold lettering of the address simply carried the name Candace Lane instead of Mrs. William Lane. When he slit the envelope and took out the single sheet it contained, she began the letter as she usually did.
Dear William,
I have not written you for a good many months because until now there has been nothing to write. You hear from the boys regularly, I hope, and I live here in the same idle way. Today though there is something to write. I am going to be married again. I suppose this would not interest you, except I think I ought to tell you that I am going to marry Seth James. He was in love with me long ago when I was just a girl, before you and I were engaged. We began being friends again after Father died, and now it seems natural to go on into marriage. I expect to be happy. We shall keep on living here. Seth has always liked this house. But we’ll have his town house, too. As you probably know, his paper failed, and he lost so much money that he has only enough to live on now and not enough to venture into anything else except maybe another play. But he says he will enjoy just living here with me. We will be married on Christmas Eve. Will and Jerry approve, by the way. It’s sweet of them.
Good-by, William
CANDACE
The letter was so like her that for a moment William felt an amazing twinge of the heart. Candace was a good woman, childish but good. He had an envious reverence for sheer goodness, the quality his father had possessed in purity, and which he sometimes longed to know that he had. This longing he hid in the secret darkness of his own heart, among those shadows of his being which no one had ever penetrated, even Emory, for whom he felt something more near to admiration than he had ever felt toward any human person. She met him well at every point of his being. Her mind was quicker than his own and he suspected, without ever saying so, that it was more profound. She filled his house with music. Yet, though quite independent of him, she never talked too much, she never led in any conversation when he was present, she deferred to him not with malice as so many women did to men, not with the ostentation which made a mockery of deference. He believed that she admired him, too, and this gave him confidence in himself and in her, although her admiration was not flat and without criticism as Candace’s had been. Yet even Emory did not have the pure goodness of which he had been conscious in his father and now perceived unwillingly in Candace.
His eye fell on the letter again. Christmas Eve? He was leaving for China the day after Christmas. This made him remember Lem Barnard. He buzzed long and steadily until Miss Smith came to the door, her pale eyes popped in the way he intensely disliked.
“Tell Barnard to come here,” he commanded. “I suppose he’s about the office?”
“Oh yes, sir, he’s been here for hours—” She liked Lem, as everybody did.
William did not answer this. He frowned unconsciously and drummed his fingers upon the table. Within fifty seconds Lem Barnard shambled in, a huge lumbering fellow, overweight, and wearing as usual a dirty tweed suit. A button was gone from the coat and he needed a haircut.
“Sit down, Lem,” William said. He opened a folder on the desk before him. “I have been reading over your recent dispatches. China is going to be very important to us now. We have to have a policy, well defined and clear to everybody. There must be no confusion between editors and reporters. You are to find the sort of news that fits our policy.”
The veins on Lem’s temples swelled slightly but William did not look at him. He went on, ruffling the edges of the typed pages as he did so.
“These reports you’ve sent for the last three months have been very troublesome. I’ve had to go over everything myself. There has been little I could use. This is not the time, let me tell you, to bring back gossip and rumors about the Chiangs — either husband or wife.”
Lem exploded, “I’ve only told you what Chinese people themselves are saying.”
“I don’t care what Chinese people are saying,” William retorted. “I never care what any people say. I am interested in telling them what to say.”
He tapped the sheets with the tips of his ringers. “If I were interested in what people say my papers would soon degenerate to gossip sheets. Do you know why they succeed? Because they tell people what to think! You’re clever, Lem, but you aren’t clever enough. People don’t care to read what they already think or what any people think — they know all that well enough. They want to know what they ought to think. It is a spiritual desire, deep in the heart of mankind.”