Page:Night and Day (1919).pdf/276

 Mr. Clacton,” said Mary dutifully, but her tone was flat and tired.

“We learn to do without holidays, Miss Datchet,” said Mr. Clacton, with a spark of satisfaction in his eye.

He wished particularly to have her opinion of the lemon-coloured leaflet. According to his plan, it was to be distributed in immense quantities immediately, in order to stimulate and generate, “to generate and stimulate,” he repeated, “right thoughts in the country before the meeting of Parliament.”

“We have to take the enemy by surprise,” he said. “They don’t let the grass grow under their feet. Have you seen Bingham’s address to his constituents? That’s a hint of the sort of thing we’ve got to meet, Miss Datchet.”

He handed her a great bundle of newspaper cuttings, and, begging her to give him her views upon the yellow leaflet before lunch-time, he turned with alacrity to his different sheets of paper and his different bottles of ink.

Mary shut the door, laid the documents upon her table, and sank her head on her hands. Her brain was curiously empty of any thought. She listened, as if, perhaps, by listening she would become merged again in the atmosphere of the office. From the next room came the rapid spasmodic sounds of Mrs. Seal’s erratic typewriting; she, doubtless, was already hard at work helping the people of England, as Mr. Clacton put it, to think rightly; “generating and stimulating,” those were his words. She was striking a blow against the enemy, no doubt, who didn’t let the grass grow beneath their feet. Mr. Clacton’s words repeated themselves accurately in her brain. She pushed the papers wearily over to the farther side of the table. It was no use, though; something or other had happened to her brain—a change of focus so that near things were indistinct again. The same thing had happened to her once before, she remembered, after she had met Ralph in the gardens of Lincoln’s Inn