"A pretty girl,—" Saxton suggested.
"A really charming girl," continued Warrick, with unabated earnestness, "is a rotten shame."
"I'm afraid you're taking it too seriously," said Saxton. "If Miss Porter were not a very sensible young woman it would be different. You don't think for a moment that she would have her head turned—"
"No, sir; not a bit of it; but it's the principle of the thing that I'm kicking about. This is one of the things that I detest in these Western towns. It's the inability to escape from their infernal business. On the face of it their Midas ball is a social event, but at the bottom, it's merely a business venture. All the business men have got to go in for it, but it doesn't stop there; they must drag their families in. Evelyn Porter has got to mix up with the daughters of the plumbers and the candlestick makers in order that the god of commerce may be satisfied."
"You don't quite grasp the situation," said Saxton. "If you had to get out among these men who have hard work to do every day you'd have a different feeling about such things. They've got to make the town go, and this carnival is one of the ways in which they can stir things up commercially, and at the same time give pleasure to a whole lot of people."
"Now look here, you know as well as I do that you can't mix up all sorts and conditions of men, and particularly women, in this way, without making a mess of it. A man may introduce the green grocer at the corner, and all that kind of ruck, to his wife and daughter, but what's the good of it?"
"Well, what's the good of a democracy anyhow?" demanded Saxton. "I used to have those ideas, too, when I was younger, but I thought it all over when I was herding cattle up in Wyoming and I renounced such notions for all time, even before I went broke. I found when I got back East that I carried my new convictions with me, and the sight of civilized people and good food did not change me."
"Well, the girl oughtn't to be sacrificed anyhow," said Warrick, spitefully.
Saxton bit his pipe hard and grinned.
"Look here, Raridan, I'm afraid it's the girl and not the philosophy of the thing that's worrying you. Why didn't you tell me it was the girl, and not the social fabric generally, that you want to defend?"