“You going to stay here some time?” asked the Editor, after a longish silence.
Renouard, perfunctorily, did see no reason why he should make a long stay.
“For health, for your mental health, my boy,” rejoined the newspaper man. “To get used to human faces so that they don’t hit you in the eye so hard when you walk about the streets. To get friendly with your kind. I suppose that assistant of yours can be trusted to look after things?”
“There’s the half-caste too. The Portuguese. He knows what’s to be done.”
“Aha!” The Editor looked sharply at his friend. “What’s his name?”
“The assistant’s you picked up on the sly behind my back.”
Renouard made a slight movement of impatience.
“I met him unexpectedly one evening. I thought he would do as well as another. He had come from up country and didn’t seem happy in a town. He told me his name was Walter. I did not ask him for proofs, you know.”
“I don’t think you get on very well with him.”
“I don’t know. Something reluctant in your manner when he’s in question.”
“Really. My manner! I don’t think he’s a great subject for conversation, perhaps. Why not drop him?”
“Of course! You wouldn’t confess to a mistake. Not you. Nevertheless I have my suspicions about it.”
Renouard got up to go, but hesitated, looking down at the seated Editor.
“How funny,” he said at last with the utmost seriousness, and was making for the door, when the voice of his friend stopped him.
“You know what has been said of you? That you couldn’t get on with anybody you couldn’t kick. Now, confess—is there any truth in the soft impeachment?”
“No,” said Renouard. “Did you print that in your paper.”
“No. I didn’t quite believe it. But I will tell you what I believe. I believe that when your heart is set on some object you are a man that doesn’t count the cost to yourself or others. And this shall get printed some day.”
“Obituary notice?” Renouard dropped negligently.
“Do you then regard yourself as immortal?”
“No, my boy. I am not immortal. But the voice of the press goes on for ever. . . . And it will say that this was the secret of your great success in a task where better men than you—meaning no offence—did fail repeatedly.”
“Success,” muttered Renouard, pulling-to the office door after him with considerable energy. And the letters of the word PRIVATE like a row of white eyes seemed to stare after his back sinking down the staircase of that temple of publicity.