Her Infinite Variety by Louis Auchincloss, Louis S. Auchincloss Page A

cheating his stockholders and falsifying his balance sheets and I don't know what other God damn libels? Holy Moses, I had a bad enough time with Dad when he learned that O'Connor was connected with the
Star,
persuading him that it didn't matter because he only wrote a
column
for the damn paper and wasn't even on it at the time! But this! He'd throw me out of the damn bank if my wife worked for the
Star!
"
    "But I wouldn't have anything to do with any old matter like that! I'd be on my own, Trevor, writing up my own things!"
    "Clara, we're not even going to discuss it! It's out of the question! Utterly and entirely out of the question!"
    "And if I decide to do it anyway?"
    "You won't! You can't! Now go to bed!"
    Trevor meant it about going to bed, and in the morning he left for the office after shaving, without his breakfast, in the obvious determination not to hear any more of the matter until she had had a chance to let his resolution sink in.
    At ten o'clock she went to the offices of the
Morning Star
and was finally received, though only with considerable difficulty, for he was fighting off the press, by the defeated candidate. Rory looked very tired and seemed almost bored by her questions.
    "Did your paper malign Mr. Hoyt?" she wanted to know.
    "I don't think it did. The full story never came out. There were files that curiously disappeared. The charges against your father-in-law were dropped in the end by the U.S. Attorney, but I doubt that they would have been if the whole truth had been known."
    "But he was vindicated. That's a fact?"
    "In the eyes of his colleagues. And on the record."
    "Doesn't that give his family some right to a grudge against your paper?"
    "A grudge, no. Even if he had been innocent, it was the job of a free press to investigate the charges that were launched and the considerable evidence that then seemed to support them. If we never looked into any matters except those where the accused were found guilty beyond a doubt we might as well shut the press down now."
    "I see." She nodded gravely. "Of course, that must be so. But what about Clarabel Hoyt? Where does that leave her?"
    "So long as you ask me, I think it leaves her with a job on the
Morning
Star.
"
    "And I should tell my husband that?"
    "In so many words."
    "And dish my marriage?"
    "I can hardly believe it would do that. And if it did, what would that marriage be worth?"
    "Oh,
you
can say that."
    "I can say it and do. It's like that old hymn they made even us Catholic boys sing at Andover: 'Once to every man and nation, comes the moment to decide.'"
    "To every
man.
" Was his smile mocking her?
    "You're making too much of it, Clara. Trevor Hoyt's too smart a guy to let you go over a newspaper job."
    "Too smart? Thanks a heap!"
    "All right, too loving, then. Make it as smarmy as you like."
    "I don't think I want it to be a bit smarmy. Good day, Mr. O'Connor."
    Her mother was in town for the day, and she had agreed to meet Clara for lunch at the Colony Club. Violet listened, silent and intent, while her daughter in bitter, clipped tones, recited the tale of the job offer and the reaction of her son-in-law. Her first comment was directed, shrewdly enough, to an inquiry as to O'Connor's advice. She nodded with a kind of grim satisfaction when she learned what it was.
    "He wants to use you, my dear. What a feather in his cap to have Mrs. Trevor Hoyt on his radical sheet!"
    "You think that's all it is?"
    "Well not all, no. He's smart enough to know you'd be a damn good reporter. But he can lay his hands on plenty of good reporters who aren't related to the Hoyts and Trevors. And never forget he's sin Irishman."
    "That means he's on the make?"
    "Well, let's put it that they're great ones for having their cake and eating it too. An Irishman, for example, would have no trouble marrying for money
and
for love. Both at the same time and in perfect sincerity!"
    "Well, if he marries me, he won't get any money. Trevor will see to that."
    "Holy God, what