He sent Bob out on an assignment shortly after and then stood before the window watching the darkness close down on the water.
There was no doubt that The Journal’s affairs were looking up. A new movement had come into the city—a non-partisan political element who in default of a paper of their own were using his. They were backing a strong man and a comparatively decent one for mayor in the November elections and political advertising had swelled the funds of The Journal as much as its advocacy of a strong candidate had increased its circulation. And Langley found his old nerve coming back into his writing. He admitted occasionally to some of his companions that it was worth while writing if someone was reading what he wrote. But there seemed to be other things that stimulated his thought. He had a way of watching Horatia’s profile, clear and pure against the window, of drinking in the frank admiration in her tone and her face as she talked to him, the sweetness of her impersonality—those things were getting into his writing too. But he never admitted that. So on this October day when Horatia sat struggling with her typewriter, he acted quite as if he was oblivious to her presence.
She rose at last and brought her copy to him and he groaned as usual at the misplaced letters and figures.
“But read it,” said Horatia gaily. “It’s a description of the mass meeting the women got up for our candidate which mentions the name of every lady present who can afford to subscribe to the paper. I’m getting on to the game. And please don’t give me any more to do this afternoon because I want to go.”
“Nice businesslike attitude,” said the editor.
“Everything’s done,” said Horatia, defensively.
“All right.”
“I’ll tell you what I want to do,” volunteered Horatia.
Langley had permitted himself no inquisitiveness but he seemed glad and composed himself to listen.
“My revered uncle and aunt feel so nieceless since I work all day and sleep all the time that I’m home that they have decided to do a very wonderful thing. They are going to Florida for the rest of the winter to look at beauties which they are getting too old to appreciate. And as it seemed useless to keep the stone house open for me, I am told to go to live with Maud. I don’t want to live with Maud, however, and, truth to tell, I don’t think Maud, though she won’t admit it, wants me to very much. I’m not much help to her and I rile her pool of life. She has admitted that if I could get a ‘cunning little apartment and some girl to live with me,’ I might be more content. And so I have found a cunning little apartment and the friend dropped from heaven to live with me. She is the new woman in the government labor office, Grace Walsh. I heard about her—she was five or six years ahead of me at the University—and I went to see her and she’s very keen about it, living with me, I mean.”