“Pipe down, will you?” Flannery bellowed. “Now listen, fellows, I only stuck my head out here because you’ve been driving my poor secretaries nuts with notes and questions that you know they can’t answer and I can’t either… wait a minute-quiet-listen-I told all of you every day last week, I told you yesterday, I told you this morning, and I’ll repeat it once more for those of you who need ear trumpets: the President, and correctly so, believes it would be improper to make any public statement about his impeachment trial while it is in progress. He may have something to say afterward, but right now-”

“Afterward will be too late, and nobody’ll want to listen!” someone croaked out, and Edna could see the speaker was the repulsive Reb Blaser. “Tim, you tell him, for his own sake,” Blaser went on, “he better take advantage of any free space while he can get it. Two weeks from now he won’t be able to get mention in a single paper unless he takes out want ads!”

Another voice shouted angrily, “Can it, Reb, will you? You’ll always have Jeff Davis to write about anyway!… Hey, Tim, what about-?”

There was a chorus of laughter, and then Flannery stilled it. “Boys-repeat and stet-no comment from the President until the trial is over. However, he will continue to make statements and give out releases on other matters of government. Right now, I have two or three routine-”

The press crowd had quieted, bringing pencils to their pads, as Flannery read the White House news of the day.

Edna Foster realized that she would have to take the long route to her office, or whoever’s office it was by now. She started across the lobby, and had just passed the heavy center table adorned by the White House police pistol-shooting trophy, when she heard her name called aloud.

Slowing, she turned her head in time to observe George Murdock, decked out in an expensive smoke-gray suit she had not seen before, his pitted face beaming, as he hastened around the table to intercept her.

“Honey,” he said, grasping her forearms, “what a sight for sore eyes. Why didn’t you call me? When did you get back?”

The obligatory scene, she told herself. There was no use trying to escape it. A phrase from the trial crossed her mind, and she altered it for George and herself: kill the beast before it-even if it-means the end of your own life.

“Edna, when did you get back?” he repeated.

“I’ve never been away, George.”

“Never been away?” he echoed, puzzled, slowly releasing her arms.

“That’s right. I was here all the time. I didn’t want you to know, because I didn’t want to see you.”

“Edna, what in the devil do you mean-you didn’t want to see me?”

“I mean I want nothing to do with a person I can’t trust. You took what I told you in confidence, you sold it to Zeke Miller in return for a filthy job, and you are as responsible as anyone for the President being on trial, and that makes me ill-and you make me ill.”

At first, from the crimson hurt on his face, she thought that he would deny everything. To her surprise, he did not. He said, “Look, sure, but there was no question of breaking trust-I’ve never double-crossed anyone in my life-and you, I wouldn’t-” Suddenly he was aware that the conference around Tim Flannery was breaking up, and his colleagues were spreading about the room. “Edna,” he said urgently, “we can’t talk here. Let’s go out for something and I’ll explain-”

“I’m not going anywhere with you, now or ever.”

Pained, he dropped his voice low. “Look, honey, you promised to help me hold my old job or get a new one by tipping me off in advance to any news-and I thought, maybe I was mistaken, but I thought what you told me that night was meant to be in the nature of offering me something I could use-to help both of us. Well, I was just going to use a little, and that’s all I did use, but Reb and the Miller staff, they added two and two and came up with more. My own part in it was next to nothing.”

She would give no ground. “If your part was next to nothing, how come Zeke Miller paid you off so handsomely? For next to nothing?”

“Honey,” he whispered, “the ammunition that maybe they got from me, that I hinted at, was practically a dud compared to what they had found out and stored up already. Miller, he was just being grateful that I-I was on the side of people who want to see this country run right, that’s all. You don’t know him, Edna. Miller is actually a generous man beneath that political bombast. Anyway, I really believe it, that stuff about the President, and I really believe I’ve done something good for my country. Is that wrong? It’s all out now. And you know it as well as I do. Dilman isn’t fit to be our head of state. So be sensible-”

“Be sensible? For what? So we can be married, and you can have a cheap source of hot news for-”

“Stop it, Edna. Dilman’ll be out on his butt in two weeks, and you’ll be out of a job, so what kind of news source will you be? I want to marry you because I want to, that’s all. I can afford it now, and I want to be a family man-”

“Well, I can’t afford it now, because you’ve cost me too much.”

She saw him glancing off nervously, and then she became aware that Reb Blaser was hovering nearby, pretending disinterest. She was perversely pleased with George’s discomfort. She placed the soggy umbrella under her arm and started to go around him.

“Wait a minute,” he said, attempting to block her, “we’re not through.”

“Oh yes, we are.”

“You mean you’re choosing Black Sambo over me?” he said tightly.

“I’m choosing to go back to work for a man who’s trying his best, if he’ll have me, rather than live with a-a-with whatever low, slimy thing you’ve become. Good-bye, George. You and Blaser go on writing good lynch stories. I’ll be watching for them in print. Only don’t bother to call me ever again, especially not when you can’t sleep nights.”

“Edna, for God’s sake-”

She heard no more. She rushed out of the lobby. In the corridor, she was pleased with only one thing: that she was tearless.

Entering her office, she could see that nothing had changed except that her swivel chair was now occupied by the scrawny colored girl, Diane Fuller, who was busy on the telephone. As Edna put down her purse, propped her umbrella in a corner, and took off her raincoat, she realized that Diane was regarding her with popeyed disbelief, as if she were an apparition from another world.

Diane Fuller said, “Yes, Mr. President,” into the telephone. Then hanging up, rising, fumbling for her shorthand pad and pencils, she nervously said, “Hello, Miss Foster. I somehow didn’t expect you.”

Edna reached the desk. “Where are you going?”

“Inside. There’s a meeting about to start. The President wants me to take it down.”

“Well, you never mind.” She held out her hands for the pad and pencils. “I’m ready to go back to work.”

Diane Fuller clutched the pad and pencils. “I-I don’t know if-”

“I don’t know either, Diane,” she agreed, “but I intend to find out.” Firmly, she removed pad and pencils from the colored girl’s fingers. “You stand by for a while, take the phone messages. If I remain inside over five minutes you can go back to your office in the East Wing. If I come flying right out, you’ve got yourself a permanent position right here.”

Without bothering to check her appearance in the mirror, Edna Foster opened the heavy door to the Oval Office and walked into the room. At first, as she advanced toward the Buchanan desk, she saw him in profile, and she realized that President Dilman was unaware of her entrance. He stood behind the desk, his attention entirely fixed on the television screen. The volume was turned low, and not until Edna reached the desk could she make out the words spoken by the voice coming from the television set, that of Nat Abrahams, as it gently chided the House for having included Article II as one of the impeachment charges.