“Dear little mate, this is silly—come away. I’ve something worth while to tell you—something big, something wonderful, something as old as eternity but always new—”
He waked from his reverie with a start to find his antagonist holding him with a determined gaze that put sentiment to flight.
“Peace or war?” she firmly repeated.
“If I am to choose,” he fenced, “I assure you it will be peace—”
He paused and studied her expression of serious concentration. In spite of every effort to fix his mind in politics he persisted in the silliest old-fashioned admiration of her wistful, appealing beauty. Confound it. She had no right to use such a power for the propaganda of crackbrained theories! He felt the foundations of the moral world tremble at the shock of this resistless, elemental force. The man who desires a woman will sell principle, country, right, God, for his desire. Was he going to be trapped by this ancient snare? Such a woman might play with a victim as a cat a mouse until her purpose was accomplished. Sex attraction is the one force that defies all logic and scoffs at reason. The government of a democracy was a difficult task under present conditions. What would it become when the decision on which the mightiest issues hung could be decided by the smile of a woman’s lips or the dimple in her cheek?
He felt the pull of this fascination with a sense of inward panic. What the devil was she laughing at a while ago as they crossed the street? He had forgotten it for the moment, and she hadn’t explained. He would fence a little for time before meeting the issue. He touched the tip of his mustache thoughtfully.
“Anyhow, suppose we shake hands before we begin the fight. It’s one of the rules of the game you know—”
She leaned across the table with a puzzled expression.
“Shake hands?”
“Yes—spiritually, so to speak. I’d like to get on as friendly footing as possible to appeal to your mercy if I’m defeated. Would you mind telling me at what you were laughing when we crossed Second Avenue?”