"You've some writing you want to do—a book, maybe? You're afraid the review will interfere?"
"Ah, now you're a tiny bit warmer! I am afraid it will interfere, but in a much deeper way than that; interfere with me."
"I don't quite follow that, do I!"
"Good gracious, no—since you ask. It's simple enough, though—and pretty vague. Only it feels important—here." For an instant her hand just touched her breast. "I hate so to be roped in, Ambo, have things staked out for me—spiritually, I mean. Mr. Sampson's a darling; I love him! But he's a great believer in ropes and stakes and fences—even barbed wire. I'm beginning to see that the whole idea of his review is a scheme for mending political and moral and social fences, stopping up gaps in them made by irresponsible idealists—anarchists, revolutionary socialists—people like that. People like me, really!—There! Now you do look surprised."
I was; but I smiled.
"You've turned Red, Susan? How long since? Overnight?"
"Not red," answered Susan, with bravely forced gayety; "pinkish, say! I haven't fixed on my special shade till I'm sure it becomes me."
"It's certain to do that, dear."
She bobbed me a little bow across the cloth, much in the old happy style—alas, not quite. "But I never did like washed-out colors," she threw in for good measure.
"You are irresponsible, then! Suppose Phil could hear you—or Jimmy. Jimmy'd say your Greenwich Village friends were corrupting you. Perhaps they are?"