“I bet you haven’t heard a word I said.”
Hamilton came out of his trance.
“Why, yes I have.” He groped blindly. “You were asking me if—if—”
“See, you haven’t been listening to me. You’ve sat that way for ten minutes, staring at something.”
Hamilton didn’t wish to say it, fought against saying it, and said it, although still in his tone of light banter.
“I was staring into your eyes. You know how one loses oneself while gazing into a crystal.”
Now that he had said it, it sounded flat, stilted. But even so, flattery of some kind was his only possible defense. Meadows made a little bow.
“While you were crystal-gazing you mumbled something about your idea of aristocracy and business efficiency.”
“Oh, did I? It’s simply that an aristocracy, freed from the necessity of work, that is, free to seek pleasure, is necessary if we are to have any culture—any civilization higher than a factory civilization.”
“Then you’d have to have a class that works and another class that lives on the fruits of their labor.”