She reached her destination at the luncheon-hour, so that the offices of the great evening journal were somewhat deserted.  Producing her card, she was passed from hand to hand till she rested in a small bleak apartment where a young woman was typing fast.  She longed to ask her how she liked it, but did not dare.  The whole atmosphere seemed to her charged with a strenuous solemnity, as though everything said, ‘We have power—­great power.’  And she waited, sitting by the window which faced the street.  On the buildings opposite she could read the name of another great evening journal.  Why, it was the one which had contained the paragraph she had read at breakfast!  She had bought a copy of it at the station.  Its temperament, she knew, was precisely opposed to that of Mr. Cuthcott’s paper.  Over in that building, no doubt there would be the same strenuously loaded atmosphere, so that if they opened the windows on both sides little puffs of power would meet in mid-air, above the heads of the passers-by, as might the broadsides of old three-deckers, above the green, green sea.

And for the first time an inkling of the great comic equipoise in Floodgate Street and human affairs stole on Nedda’s consciousness.  They puffed and puffed, and only made smoke in the middle!  That must be why Dad always called them:  ‘Those fellows!’ She had scarcely, however, finished beginning to think these thoughts when a handbell sounded sharply in some adjoining room, and the young woman nearly fell into her typewriter.  Readjusting her balance, she rose, and, going to the door, passed out in haste.  Through the open doorway Nedda could see a large and pleasant room, whose walls seemed covered with prints of men standing in attitudes such that she was almost sure they were statesmen; and, at a table in the centre, the back of Mr. Cuthcott in a twiddly chair, surrounded by sheets of paper reposing on the floor, shining like autumn leaves on a pool of water.  She heard his voice, smothery, hurried, but still pleasant, say:  “Take these, Miss Mayne, take these!  Begin on them, begin!  Confound it!  What’s the time?” And the young woman’s voice:  “Half past one, Mr. Cuthcott!” And a noise from Mr. Cuthcott’s throat that sounded like an adjuration to the Deity not to pass over something.  Then the young woman dipped and began gathering those leaves of paper, and over her comely back Nedda had a clear view of Mr. Cuthcott hunching one brown shoulder as though warding something off, and of one of his thin hands ploughing up and throwing back his brown hair on one side, and heard the sound of his furiously scratching pen.  And her heart pattered; it was so clear that he was ‘giving them one’ and had no time for her.  And involuntarily she looked at the windows beyond him to see if there were any puffs of power issuing therefrom.  But they were closed.  She saw the young woman rise and come back toward her, putting the sheets of paper in order; and, as the door was closing, from the twiddly chair a noise that seemed to couple God with the condemnation of silly souls.  When the young woman was once more at the typewriter she rose and said:  “Have you given him my card yet?”