"That seems to me—" he sought for a sufficiently condemnatory word—"that seems to me sheer socialism."
"Oh, I don't think it is. The Socialists wouldn't say so. It isn't anything in particular. It's just—just fact."
"Only?" Vio smiled, with her delicate, penetrating sarcasm.
"Only," I echoed. "But as we belong to a world that doesn't like fact it isn't of much importance."
Bewilderment brought a pained expression to the handsome, rather stupid, countenance.
"What the—what on earth do you mean by that?"
"Only that we've a genius for dodging issues and shutting our eyes to what's straight before us."
"Do you mean the ruin straight before us?"
"Not necessarily, Vio. The collapse of this particular form of civilization wouldn't mean ruin, because we'd get a better form. I suppose it's coming into existence now."
"I don't know about that," the colonel objected. "As far as I see, things are pretty much the same as they've always been, and they're getting more so."