“What’s a bomb party?”
Audrey bit her lip. “If you’d come up to our house now, you’d get the idea. It took a lot of carpenters and some scenery designers about a week to fix things for it. Mother’s idea was to make every room look—inside—as if it had been bombed. It’s her theory that if people only stopped to think what they were doing they’d stop doing it. She thought you’d be an admirable backer-upper of that theory—having just been on the grounds, so to speak. She was going to have you give a little talk.”
Jimmie stared at the girl with incredulity. “What were the costumes going to be? Bandages?”
“Something like it. You could come as any sort of a victim. Oh, it’s very breath-taking and all that—our house. There’s a big sign between the dining room and the living room that says, ‘It Must Never Happen Here.’” Audrey sighed… It’s all being removed—today. Of course, somebody or other did suggest that you might take the opposite viewpoint about things. But Mother isn’t the sort of person who admits there is an opposite viewpoint. She said, at the time, ‘If James Bailey turns out a traitor and advocates any more American hysteria, we will wither him!’ She’d have withered you, too, Jimmie.”
“My God.” He said it flatly, and thought for a while. “She couldn’t wither me, Audrey. I wish she’d tried. I wish she’d given the party. I’d have been happy to make a little talk. I would have arranged the guests in the artificial ruins in some dramatic postures—common to the London streets—and I would have keyed my address in a moderate tone—”
“I told her you would dump her applecart. I told her last night, when I came in. She was mad enough—from the rumors about you she’d already heard. She didn’t go to the dinner last night because she was putting on the finishing touches at home.”
“Painting on bloodstains, I trust,” Jimmie said.
“Something of the sort. Jimmie. The reason I came over to the factory and waited for you was this. Could you possibly swallow your pride and practice a little tact around here? I mean, could you pretend a little—just to make peace? It might be good strategy.
You have no idea how Muskogewan is torn apart by the war! How furious people get at each other! What mean things they do! After all, the people on my side of the argument aren’t altogether crazy. A lot of them are smart and nice and earnest and sincere, I can understand how you feel. I don’t agree with you a bit just because I understand. I think the warmongers are mistaken. I think they have come to believe that Hitler is a boogieman, invincible and superhuman. I think, if he ever did plan an attack on America, he’d give ample evidence beforehand—and I think that would be the time to train soldiers and make arms. I mean, for ourselves. It’s all right to help England, probably. Dangerous—but idealistic, and all that. But if you’d just even pretend to accept some such a view it would make everything—so much more convenient.”
“Everything?” His voice was a rejection.