"I don't think you're very merciful to me," said Mary Gage.
"Why, yes. God has shut your eyes to our new and distracted world. This new world?—you ought to be thankful that you cannot see it. I wish I did not have to see it. But you don't want to hear me talk? You don't want philosophizing? I'm afraid I'm not very happy in my philosophy after all."
He rose, hands in pockets, and tried to pace up and down the narrow little room.
"Don't move the chairs, please," said she. "I know where they all are now."
He laughed, and again seated himself.
"You know why I've come up? I suppose Sim has told you that we're going to have a soldier post here in your yard?"
"Yes, I was glad of that—it seemed like company."
"It will make you feel a great deal safer. And did your husband tell you that I'm going to be a person of consequence now? I'm a Major again, not just plain doctor."
"There must have been reason. The Government is alarmed?"
"Yes. Our chief engineer Waldhorn—well, he's still a German-American, to put it mildly. Told me three times he had bought fifteen thousand dollars' worth of Liberty Bonds. I fear German-Americans buying bonds! And I know Waldhorn's a red Socialist—Bolshevik—if they make them."