Arthur Dayson rolled oratorically on in defence of the man whom yesterday he had attacked.
And then Sowter, the old clerk, entered.
"What is it? Don't interrupt me!" snapped Dayson.
"There's the Signal.... Latest details.... This here Majuba business!"
"What do I care about your Majuba?" Dayson retorted. "I've got something more important than your Majuba."
"It was the governor as told me to give it you," said Sowter, restive.
"Well, give it me, then; and don't waste my time!" Dayson held out an imperial hand for the sheet. He looked at Hilda as if for moral support and added, to her, in a martyred tone: "I suppose I shall have to dash off a few lines about Sowter's Majuba while you're copying out my article."
"And the governor said to remind you that Mr. Enville wants a proof of his advertisement," Sowter called out sulkily as he was disappearing down the stairs.
Hilda blushed, as she had blushed in writing George Cannon's first lie about the printing of the first issue. She had accustomed herself to lies, and really without any difficulty or hesitation. Yes! She had even reached the level of being religiously proud of them! But now her bullied and crushed conscience leaped up again, and in the swift alarm of the shock her heart was once more violently beating. Yet amid the wild confusion of her feelings, a mechanical intelligence guided her hand to follow Arthur Dayson's final sentences. And there shone out from her soul a contempt for the miserable hack, so dazzling that it would have blinded him--had he not been already blind.