“Well, he isn’t exactly a comrade,” said Irene. “I just brought him along because he’s so aggravating and skeptical. But he’s perfectly safe. Stacey Carroll, comrades.” And with a proprietary air she drew him over to one end of the room. He rather liked Miss Loeffler. There was something so girlish beneath her pose.
Stacey looked about him idly. All but five of the persons in the room were women. He knew a few of them by sight, and the faces of others were vaguely familiar to him; but he had been away from Vernon for so long and so utterly cut off from it mentally that it was hard for him to remember old acquaintances. Doubtless he had met nearly all these people formerly—he didn’t know. Anyway, they were of a younger generation than he—in the twenties, most of them. He observed that the majority of the women wore their hair bobbed.
“Why so much bobbing of hair, Miss Loeffler? Is it a symbol of freedom?”
“I suppose you might call it that,” she replied, sitting on the arm of his leather chair. “If you were unlucky enough to be a woman you’d appreciate the advantages of wearing your hair short.”
“It’s rather becoming to you,” he observed. “Can’t say I think it is to all of them.”
“It’s stupid and old-fashioned to pay compliments,” she returned coldly. “They don’t interest me at all.”
“Sorry,” said Stacey, “but it’s difficult not to, with all this air of freedom about, and you sitting so close to me.”
She jumped up angrily, but then after a moment defiantly resumed her seat on the arm of his chair.
One of the young men, Comrade Leslie Vane, approached them. He wore a flowing black tie beneath a very low soft collar. Stacey knew him. He was a poet—published things occasionally in the “Pagan” and the “Touchstone”—and the son of John Vane, the big flour man. People in Vernon were very nice about it, but naturally at heart they felt sorry for Mr. Vane, Senior, who was extremely well liked, and rejoiced that at any rate his other son, John, Junior, was normal. Stacey was rather inclined to share Vernon’s point of view in this.
“Hello, Stacey,” said Vane languidly. “Glad to see a militarist with an open mind, anyhow. First example I’ve met with.”