He wondered what Betty would think of the changes. Poor old Betty! She was getting very frail, but (he thought, cheerfully) considering that she was sixty to-day she was a wonderful woman. He glanced at his watch again, fidgeted with impatience. She would be waiting for him in the car outside—very nice of the old dear to come down for him every day as she had done for now, let me see, was it five or six years past? Ever since he had had his illness. Dear old Betty! He warmed himself with the thought of the splendid fur coat he was going to buy her as a birthday present that afternoon.
The door opened suddenly. Young Vancoutter uttered his name with a smile, murmured an apology, beckoned him in.
He entered, glanced round upon the familiar faces and the new ones gathered on each side of the long table. The new looked up at him with interest, the old bent over blotting-pads on which they scribbled idly. He seated himself.
Vancoutter spoke in his familiar crisp tones.
“Mr. Trenchard, I have to inform you that the board has come to very satisfactory terms with the syndicate who are, in fact, now the new proprietors of the Daily Rostrum.” The speaker paused for a moment, cleared his throat. “You will, of course, readily understand that these new proprietors wish to have complete control of their property and that their ideas of editorial management may not coincide with ours—with those which you have so successfully and so worthily upheld for so many years.” He felt himself turn sick as he listened, pinched his lips together lest his emotion should be remarked. A mantle of ice seemed to compress him. Vancoutter continued, with an indulgent smile: “We for our part, of course, have safeguarded the interests of a man who has served us so brilliantly, whose association with our paper——” ‘Our paper’! He almost smiled in bitter irony.“—has so materially contributed to bring it to that pitch of influence at which it is still maintained to-day. Therefore, as part of the purchase-price paid by the new proprietors, ten thousand shares have been set aside as your property—and, if you prefer it, the syndicate has engaged itself to buy those shares of you, cash down, at the current market valuation——”
He scarcely knew what followed. He had only the most indistinct recollection of several other long-winded speeches whose flattery was sincerely intended to soften the blow. He could not remember what he himself had said—apparently, he had kept his dignity—had duly thanked the old proprietors. Of all the welter of words, he clearly recalled only—“The younger generation, Mr. Trenchard! A man of sixty-two owes it to himself to retire!”—and they haunted him, rang over and over again in his brain like the knell of his life.
At last he escaped, went stumbling blindly down the stairs, forgetting, for the first time for forty years, the elevator. Betty was waiting for him in the closed car, her head peering out of the window. He groped for the door, almost fell into it. She helped him to the seat.
“My dear! What is the matter?” she said, white with alarm. “Are you ill?”
He clenched his jaw in the agony of his humiliation.