"And you never think of the day when Ferrol doesn't want you any more?"
"Well, you know," Humphrey said, with a smile, "it's difficult to explain. We just trust to luck. After all, lots of men have drifted into journalism; when they're done, they drift back again."
"I see," Elizabeth Carr said, nodding her head gently. "And there are always fresh men to drift."
Humphrey shrugged his shoulders. "What else can I do?"
The bell rang. "Ah! what else!" she exclaimed, rising to meet her visitors.
The new-comers were introduced to Humphrey. One was a tall, thin man, with remarkable eyes, black and deep-sunken, and the thin mobile lips of an artist. His name was Dyotkin; he spoke English fluently, with a faint Russian accent. The other was a woman whose youthful complexion and features of middle age were in conflict, but whose hair tinged with grey left no doubt of her years. Although her dress was in excellent taste, it suggested an unduly overbearing wealth. Humphrey recognized her name when he heard it: Mrs Hayman. She was one of the philanthropists who helped Elizabeth in her work.
They went into dinner, to sit at a little oval Chippendale table just big enough for the four of them; Dyotkin and he faced one another, sitting between Elizabeth and Mrs Hayman.
"Your work must be very interesting," Mrs Hayman said.
Humphrey smiled. That was the commonest remark he heard. Those who did not know what the work was, perceived dimly its interest, but not one of them could ever be made to understand the intense, eager passion of the life.
"It is interesting," Humphrey said. "Miss Carr knows a good deal of it."
"I suppose you go everywhere--it must be splendid."
"When you talk like that, I, too, think it must be splendid. Sometimes, it's very funny."
"Still, it's nice to see everything, isn't it? And I suppose you go to theatres and concerts."
"Oh no! I'm not a critic. That's another man's work. I'm just a reporter."
"I don't know how you get your news. What do you do? Go out in the morning and ask people? And isn't it dreadfully difficult to fill the paper?"
It was always the same; nobody could understand the routine of the business. Everybody had the same idea that newspaper offices lived in a day of tremulous anticipation lest there should not be enough news. Nobody understood that the happenings in the world were so vast and complex, that their sole anxiety was to compress into four pages the manifold events that had happened while the earth had turned on its axis for one day.