George was able to be up now, able to drive out, and to see more people; and Campton was not surprised, on approaching his door a day or two later, to hear several voices in animated argument.
The voices (and this did surprise him) were all men’s. In one he recognized Boylston’s deep round notes; but the answering voice, flat, toneless and yet eager, puzzled him with a sense of something familiar but forgotten. He opened the door, and saw, at the tea-tray between George and Boylston, the smoothly-brushed figure of Roger Talkett.
Campton had not seen Mrs. Talkett’s husband for months, and in the interval so much had happened that the young man, always somewhat faintly-drawn, had become as dim as a daguerreotype held at the wrong angle.
The painter hung back, slightly embarrassed; but Mr. Talkett did not seem in the least disturbed by his appearance, or by the fact of himself being where he was. It was evident that, on whatever terms George might be with his wife, Mr. Talkett was determined to shed on him the same impartial beam as on all her other visitors.
His eye-glasses glinted blandly up at Campton. “Now I daresay I am subversive,” he began, going on with what he had been saying, but in a tone intended to include the newcomer. “I don’t say I’m not. We are a subversive lot at home, all of us—you must have noticed that, haven’t you, Mr. Campton?”
Boylston emitted a faint growl. “What’s that got to do with it?” he asked.
Mr. Talkett’s glasses slanted in his direction. “Why—everything! Resistance to the herd-instinct (to borrow one of my wife’s expressions) is really innate in me. And the idea of giving in now, of sacrificing my convictions, just because of all this deafening noise about America’s danger and America’s duties—well, no,” said Mr. Talkett, straightening his glasses, “Philistinism won’t go down with me, in whatever form it tries to disguise itself.” Instinctively, he stretched a neat hand toward the teacups, as if he had been rearranging the furniture at one of his wife’s parties.
“But—but—but——” Boylston stuttered, red with rage.
George burst into a laugh. He seemed to take a boyish amusement in the dispute. “Tea, father?” he suggested, reaching across the tray for a cigarette.