“Not politics. It is about Harvey Wheelwright.”
Banneker was amused. “The immortally popular Wheelwright. We’re serializing his new novel, ‘Satiated with Sin,’ in the Sunday edition. My idea. It’ll put on circulation where we most need it.”
“Is that any reason why you should exploit him as if he were the foremost living novelist?”
“Certainly. Besides, he is, in popularity.”
“But, Ban; his stuff is awful! If this latest thing is like the earlier. [“Worse,” murmured Banneker.] And you’re writing about him as if he were—well, Conrad and Wells rolled into one.”
“He’s better than that, for the kind of people that read him. It’s addressed to them, that editorial. All the stress is on his piety, his popularity, his power to move men’s minds; there isn’t a word that even touches on the domain of art or literary skill.”
“It has that effect.”
“Ah! That’s my art,” chuckled Banneker. “That’s literary skill, if you choose!”
“Do you know what I call it? I call it treason.”
His mind flashed to meet hers. She read comprehension in his changed face and the shadow in her eyes, lambent and profound, deepened.