But over and over again recurred the question, "Why don't people think about these things?" She wanted to rush out and wipe the slates of her friends clear of their comfortable sophistries. She wanted to make them understand that because a man preached change he was not as dangerous as the man who preached inaction when there was a volcano under their feet. Why must they always destroy their Cassandras?
She was at a pitch of exaltation which she had seldom attained before when John Baker, the most phlegmatic person she knew, was announced.
He greeted her seriously, as he greeted everyone, and accomplished the conversational preliminaries in the fewest possible words. Then he made clear the purpose of his visit.
"I have bad news for you," he said calmly.
"Yes?" Judith's manner was as placid as his own, though a thousand questions flashed across her mind.
He cleared his throat. "It is a fact that even the shrewdest men make bad investments—indefensible investments," he said profoundly, as if the discovery were his own.
"Oh...." Her fears vanished. He was the harbinger only of financial trouble.
"Your father," he went on without haste, "was an extraordinarily shrewd man. But even he...."
"... made bad investments?"
"Exactly."