纸牌屋（House of Cards 英文版）

　　As he sat there wondering whether he had been just a little too frank with his guest, he totally  failed to notice that Urquhart had walked off with the wrong red box.

　　Mattie had been in high spirits ever since sending through her copy shortly after lunch and had  spent much of the afternoon thinking of the new doors which were slowly beginning to open for her.  She had just celebrated her first anniversary at the Telegraph, and her abilities were getting  recognition. Although she was one of the youngest members of staff, her stories had begun to get  on the front page on a frequent basis - and they were good stories, too, she knew that. Another  year of this sort of progress and she would be ready to make the next step, perhaps move up as an  assistant editor or find a role with more room to write serious political analysis and not just  daily pot boilers. Mind you, she had no complaints today. It would take an outbreak of war to stop  the copy she had just filed from making the splash headline on the front page. It was a strong  story about a Government who had lost their way; it was well written and would certainly help to  get her noticed by other editors and publishers.

　　But it was not enough. In spite of it all, she was beginning to realise that something was  missing. Even as her career developed, she was gradually discovering an emptiness which hit her  every time she left the office and got worse as she walked past her front door into her cold,  silent apartment. There was a pit somewhere deep inside her which had begun to ache, an ache she  hoped had been left way behind in Yorkshire. Damn men! Why couldn't they leave her alone? But she  knew no one else was to blame; her own needs were gnawing away inside her, and they were becoming  increasingly difficult to ignore.

　　Neither could she ignore the urgent message to call her office which she received shortly before 5  o'clock. She had just finished taking tea on the terrace with the Home Secretary, who was anxious  to get the Telegraph to puff his speech the following day and who in any event wanted an excuse to  avoid sitting through another afternoon of his colleagues' speeches. The hotel lobby was crowded  as people began to desert the conference hall early in search of refreshment and relaxation, but  one of the public telephones was free and she decided to put up with the noise. When she got  through, Preston's secretary explained that he was engaged on the phone and connected her with the  deputy editor, John Krajewski, a gentle giant of a man she had begun to spend a little time with  during the long summer months, spurred on by a shared enjoyment of good wine and the fact that his  father, like her grandfather, had been a wartime refugee from Europe. She greeted him warmly, but  his response left her feeling like ice.

　　'Hello, Mattie. Look, let me not cover everything in three feet of bullshit but come straight to  the point. We're not - he's not - running your story. I really am sorry.'

　　There was a stunned silence over the phone as she turned over the words in her own mind to make  sure that she had understood correctly.

　　'What the hell do you mean you're not running it?'

　　'Just what I say, Mattie.' Krajewski was clearly having grave difficulty with the conversation.  'I'm sorry I can't give you all the details because Grev has been dealing with it personally -'I  haven't touched it myself - but apparently it's such a hot story that he feels he cannot run it  without being absolutely sure of our ground. He says that we have always supported this Government  loyally and he's not about to throw editorial policy out of the window on the basis of an  anonymous piece of paper. He says we have to be absolutely certain before we move, and we can't be  if we don't know where this piece of paper came from.'

　　'For God's sake, it doesn't matter where the bloody paper came from. Whoever sent it to me  wouldn't have done so if he thought his identity was going to be spread all over our news room.  All that matters is that it's genuine, and I've confirmed that.'

　　'Look, I know how you must feel about this, Mattie, and I wish I were a million miles away from  this one. Believe me I've argued this one hard and long for you, but Grev is adamant. It's not  running.'

　　Mattie wanted to scream. She suddenly regretted making the call from a crowded lobby, where she  could not argue the case for fear that a rival journalist would hear, and neither could she use  the sort of language she felt like using with dozens of constituency wives crowding around her.