Stacey reflected, as he acknowledged the greeting, that when the Middle-West turned esthetic it became mournfully old-fashioned. Positively Leslie Vane was going back all of twenty-five years in search of a style.
“Sure!” he said. “I’m open to conviction, but what do you want to convince me of?”
“Oh,” drawled Vane, “the papers have all been read; you’re late. There’s only just general talk going on now, but it may do you some good if you’ll listen.”
A little group had gathered around them, and the smoky air became full of words, among which “Soviets,” “proletariat,” and “Bolshevism” predominated.
Stacey, too bored to listen, fell to wondering for a moment about real Bolshevism. He shook his head. No use, that either. He didn’t care if change did come. In a way he would be furiously delighted if order was upset,—things were so silly. But he didn’t believe in any millennium or even in improvement through change. What had the war accomplished?
“—and so that, most of all,” some woman was saying, “is the true lesson of Holy Russia. What do you think of it, Mr. Carroll? I won’t call you Captain.”
He started. “Of Bolshevism? The—er—coming social revolution. Oh, you’ll all be raped, then cut in little pieces, and Comrade Leslie will have his throat cut. Not because Bolshevism is so especially worse than anything else, but because that’s what always happens when any kind of violence gets loose. And, do you know? I don’t care a damn whether it comes or not!”
He meant what he said, as much as he meant anything at all in respect to these futile idiots, but, since there was no passion in his words and his face remained expressionless, his remarks were delightedly deemed a skilful evasion of the question (“My dear, how could he say what he really thought—he a captain and a Carroll?”) and an amusing pleasantry. His bold use of the word “rape,” too, was much appreciated.
But such comments were made after his departure. For neither Miss Loeffler’s physical attractiveness nor conversation with the fashionable followers of Lenin could any longer distract his mind from Marian. She and Ames would be sitting close together now in the drawing-room of a Pullman car. . . .
He escaped from the club and went home.