"People—people in the mass," Mary said scornfully, "are just sheep. One big sheep says 'Baa!' and all the lesser sheep chorus 'Baa!' defiantly or plaintively, as the case may be."
Rod laughed. He got up from his chair.
"Where's that club bag? Oh, I see it. That sheep thing reminds me. I heard Andy Hall use that simile once, and I came across the same observation in a book I bought on the train."
He came back to his wife with a volume in his hand.
"Have you seen this novel?" he asked. "If not you must read it. Some one who knows this country and loves it and understands it has been putting a lot of things very clearly and sympathetically in a book. Some of it is real enough to have happened, and some of the characters seem like people I know. There's truth and power in the thing. There's a man or two in it who feels about the war and political flapdoodle and tricky manipulation of affairs and a lot of current skulduggery, very much as a good many able men I know feel about it all. There is some corking good description, some fine characterization, and some almost brilliant writing. Part of the scene is laid on the B.C. coast. It's so vivid it made me homesick. Have you seen it?"
He handed her the book. Mary opened it, let the leaves riffle through her fingers, turned back to the title page.
"'The Swirl,'" she read. "A trifle reminiscent of Gissing's 'The Whirlpool' but none the worse for that, I daresay. By Margaret Pierce. Yes, I've read it," she said soberly, "read it over and over till my eyes ached, and it seemed like words, words, words. You see this happens to be my book, Rod."
"Eh?" he looked blankly at her.
"I wrote it," she explained. "Mary—diminutive of Margaret. Pierce—what is the purpose of a thorn? Hence Mary Thorn—Margaret Pierce. I didn't particularly like to camouflage my identity. But I wanted to say a lot of things which coming from Margaret Pierce would be considered on their merits, and which coming from Mrs. Roderick Sylvester Norquay might arouse local misconceptions. I wanted to be unhampered by family considerations. I wanted to express my inner convictions about various aspects of life as it has been unfolding to me for a long time. So I hoisted a nom de plume. It would be strange if you didn't find a resemblance to persons and things and people you know. Yet there isn't a photograph there—just traits and habits of thought, inhibitions and passions that are common to humanity in general. I'm not a propagandist. I don't know that this book, or any other books I may write, has a message, unless it is the oblique inference that stupidity and ignorance and intolerance are more fatal than guns. I'm not so much concerned with isms as I am with—well, with what Joseph Conrad meant when he wrote: 'Fashions in monsters do change; but the truth of humanity goes on forever, unchangeable and inexhaustible in the variety of its disclosures.' You really think," she ended a bit hurriedly, "it's good?"
"Good?" Rod echoed. He sat down on the arm of her chair. "Of course it's good. Didn't I come lugging it home as a find?"