“And what do you say,” it was the first question she had asked him in many minutes, “to Tammany’s victory! After three years of splendid reconstruction?”
It was part of Miss Lord’s program to discuss politics. Miss Lord was no “crank on women’s rights,” as she put it. That was too serious a view of the thing. Above all, or under all, she wanted you to know that she was a woman: she wanted you to treat her as a woman. But a strong, wise woman. One who could, unblushing, talk of adultery in a French play or of the degradation of a Tammany campaign.
“Why,” David answered, “I don’t know. I can’t understand. If all these things were true about Tammany Hall.... There must be something else behind it all: some reason why Van Wyck was elected.”
Miss Lord smiled. This was his opinion: a fledging’s she could take with indulgence. She wanted no more of it. Now she could deliver her own. She started.
David was thinking of Lois. Little lovely Lois. Why must his mind fill so compellingly with Lois, when he lunched with Miss Lord?
“The thing is, you see, the people do not think. Catchwords and Sunday picnics win them over. Really, popular government——”
This woman. That girl. Could two creatures be more different? Why then the idea of a comparison. Did they have something, did they lack something in common?
“... so far at least a failure.”
Their ideas were one. Here was Miss Lord trying to conceal the impression that she earned her living: trying with might and main to be like Lois. An older, more settled, equally virginal Lois?
He half-closed his eyes. It did not matter. Such subtle things as eyes half-closed were beyond Miss Lord. Beyond Lois? He heard her voice. “The City had to pay ten cents a-piece for coat-hooks! A-piece! When you can buy them anywhere retail for a nickel.” He heard her voice. It was so unlike her stalwart strapping body that he had not noticed it until now when his half-shut eyes saw less. Miss Lord’s voice was high, was girlish! It too had that ring which, though David knew no such rule, goes with an emotionally empty life. Wise, cool Miss Lord. Did she have really more of the wine of feeling than pampered Lois? Was she more alive, after all?