IV
For George dinner was chiefly a sea of meaningless chatter continually ruffled by the storm of Blodgett's voice.
"Your brother tells me," he said to Sylvia, "that you're irritating yourself with socialism."
She looked at him with a little interest then.
"I've been reading. It's quite extraordinary. Odd I should have lived so long without really knowing anything about such things."
"Not odd at all," George contradicted her. "I should call it odd that you find any interest in them now. Why do you?"
"One has to occupy one's mind," she answered.
He glanced at her. Why did she have to occupy herself with matter she couldn't possibly understand, that she would interpret always in a wrong or unsafe manner? She, too, was restless.
That was the only possible explanation. From Blodgett she had sprung to war-time fads. From those she had leaped at this convenient one which tempted people to make sparkling and meaningless phrases.
"It doesn't strike you as at all amusing," he asked, "that you should be red, that I should be conservative?"
She didn't answer. Blodgett swept them out to sea again.
Later in the evening, however, George repeated his question, and demanded an answer. They had accomplished the farce of a rehearsal, source of cumbersome jokes for Blodgett and the clergyman; of doubts and dreary prospects for Mr. Alston, who had done his share as if submitting to an undreamed-of punishment.
There was the key-ring joke. It must be a part of the curriculum of all the theological seminaries. George acted up to it, promising to tie a string around his finger, or to pin the circlet to his waistcoat.
"Or," Blodgett roared, "at a pinch you might use the ring of the wedding bells."
George stared at him. How could the man, Sylvia within handgrasp, grin and feed such a mood? It suddenly occurred to him that once more he was reading Blodgett wrong, that the man was admirable, far more so than he could be under an equal trial. Would he, a little later, be asked to face such an ordeal?
With the departure of the clergyman a cloud of reaction descended upon the party. Some yawns were scarcely stifled. Sporadic attempts to dance to a victrola faded into dialogues carried on indifferently, lazily, where the dancers had chanced to stop with the music. Mr. Alston had relinquished Sylvia to George at the moment the record had stuttered out. They were left at a distance from any other couple. George pointed out a convenient chair, and she sat down and glanced about the room indifferently.
"At dinner," George said, "I asked you if it didn't impress you as strange that our social views should be what they are, and opposite."
She didn't answer.
"I mean," he went on, "that I should benefit by your alteration."
"How?" she asked, idly fingering a flower, not looking at him.
"I fancy," he said, "that you'll admit your chief objection to me has always been my origin, my ridiculous position trotting watchfully behind the most unsocial Miss Planter. Am I not right?"
"You are entirely wrong," she said, wearily. "That has never had anything to do with my—my dislike. I think I shall go——"
"Wait," he said. "You are not telling me the truth. If you are consistent you will turn your enmity to friendship at least. You will decide there was nothing unusual in my asking you to marry me. You will even find in that a reason for my anxiety at Upton. You will understand that it is quite inevitable I should ask you to marry me again."
She sprang up and hurried away from him.
"Put on another record, Dolly——"
And almost before he had realized it Betty had taken her away, and the evening's opportunities had closed.