"You're your mother's son. It's her blood in you that's made you go the way you have.... On my side we go another way. Far back my people were all rebels. Hardly a man of 'em died in their beds.... There's a bigger war coming in this country, Laurence, than the one you fought in. There you were on the right side of the fence, but now you're not—you've gone over."
"Gone over? Gone over to what?"
"To the rich, to the capitalists, to the whole rotten system. You're a pillar of it now."
Laurence opened his eyes, looked interested.
"Do you think so, Dad?" he enquired, using for the first time the familiar address of long ago.
"Sure I think so!"
A pugnacious spark lit the old man's eye, his philosophic calm wavered.
"I'd been better pleased, Larry, if you'd stuck by your own class. It's men like you we need—you could have been a leader! But it's the old story, so soon as a man of ours shows the ability, the other side gets him—he goes after the fleshpots, and he's lost to us!"
"There are no classes in this country, you're thinking of the old world, Dad," said Laurence tolerantly.