IV
For George dinner was chiefly a sea of meaningless chatter continually ruffled by the storm of Blodgett's voice.
"Your brother tells me," he said to Sylvia, "that you're irritating yourself with socialism."
She looked at him with a little interest then.
"I've been reading. It's quite extraordinary. Odd I should have lived so long without really knowing anything about such things."
"Not odd at all," George contradicted her. "I should call it odd that you find any interest in them now. Why do you?"
"One has to occupy one's mind," she answered.
He glanced at her. Why did she have to occupy herself with matter she couldn't possibly understand, that she would interpret always in a wrong or unsafe manner? She, too, was restless.
That was the only possible explanation. From Blodgett she had sprung to war-time fads. From those she had leaped at this convenient one which tempted people to make sparkling and meaningless phrases.
"It doesn't strike you as at all amusing," he asked, "that you should be red, that I should be conservative?"