the opinions of the very few whose approval he really
desired, Io Eyre, Camilla Van Arsdale, and more remotely the men for
whose own standards he maintained a real respect, such as Willis Enderby
and Gaines. Determined to make Miss Van Arsdale see his point of view,
as well as to assure himself of hers, he had extracted from her a
promise that she would visit The Patriot office before she returned to
the West. Accordingly, on a set morning she arrived on her trip of
inspection, tall, serene, and, in her aloof _genre_, beautiful, an alien
figure in the midst of that fevered and delirious energy. He took her
through the plant, elucidating the mechanical processes of the daily
miracle of publication, more far-reaching than was ever any other voice
of man, more ephemeral than the day of the briefest butterfly.
Throughout, the visitor's pensive eyes kept turning from the creature to
the creator, until, back in the trim quietude of his office, famed as
the only orderly working-room of journalism, she delivered her wondering
question:

"And _you_ have made all this, Ban?"

"At least I've remade it."

She shook her head. "No; as I told you before, I can't see you in it."

"You mean, it doesn't express me. It isn't meant to.'

"Whom does it express, then? Mr. Marrineal?"

"No. It isn't an expression at all in that sense. It's a--a response. A
response to the demand of hundreds of thousands of people who have never
had a newspaper made for them before."

"An echo of _vox populi_? Does that excuse its sins?"

"I'm not putting it forth as an excuse. Is it really sins or only bad
taste that offends you?"

"Clever, Ban. And true in a measure. But insincerity is more than bad
taste. It's one of the primal sins."

"You find The Patriot insincere?"

"Can I find it anything else, knowing you?"

"Ah, there you go wrong again, Miss Camilla. As an expression of my
ideals, the news part of the paper would be insincere. I don't like it
much better than you do. But I endure it; yes, I'll be frank and admit
that I even encourage it, because it gives me wider scope for the things
I want to say. Sincere things. I've never yet written in my editorial
column anything that I don't believe from the bottom of my soul. Take
that as a basis on which to judge me."

"My dear Ban! I don't want to judge you."

"I want you to," he cried eagerly. "I want your judgment and your
criticism. But you must see what I'm aiming for. Miss Camilla, I'm