“Son, that was a little oil war! And a year or two later the big one broke out, and if there’s anything you don’t understand about it, all you need is to think about what happened in my aunt’s home. And remember, they were fighting for a chance to exploit the oil workers, to divide the wealth the oil workers were going to produce; in their crazy greed they killed or injured seventy-three percent of all the men they put to work on Prospect Hill—that’s government statistics also! And don’t you see how that’s the world war exactly? The workers doing the fighting, and the bankers getting the bonds!”
VI
So many things to talk about! Bunny told the story of Eli, concerning which Paul had heard no rumor. The latter said it was easy to understand, because Eli always had been a chaser after women. It was one reason Paul had been so repelled by his brother’s preaching. “I wouldn’t mind his having his girl,” he said, “only he denies my right to my girl. He preaches a silly ideal of asceticism, and then goes off secretly and does what he pleases.”
Here was an opportunity for which Bunny had been seeking. He took a sudden plunge. “Paul, there’s something I want to tell you. For the past three years I’ve been living with a moving picture actress.”
“I know,” said Paul; “Ruth told me.”
“Ruth!”
“Yes, she saw something about it in the papers,” And then, reading his friend’s thought, Paul added, “Ruth has had to learn that the world is the way it is, and not the way she’d like it to be.”
“What do you think about such things, Paul?”
“Well, son, it’s a question of how you feel about the girl. If you really love her, and she loves you, why, I suppose it’s all right. Are you happy?”
“We were at first; we still are, part of the time. The trouble is, she hates the radical movement. She doesn’t really understand it, of course.”