she asked. "I THOUGHT he would."

"Poff," she cried suddenly, "you're not a SOCIALIST?"

"Such a vague term."

"But these friends of yours--they seem to be ALL Socialists. Red
ties and everything complete."

"They have ideas," he evaded. He tried to express it better. "They
give one something to take hold of."

She sat up stiffly on the garden-seat. She lifted her finger at
him, very seriously. "I hope," she said with all her heart, "that
you will have nothing to do with such ideas. Nothing. SOCIALISM!"

"They make a case."

"Pooh! Any one can make a case."

"But--"

"There's no sense in them. What is the good of talking about
upsetting everything? Just disorder. How can one do anything then?
You mustn't. You mustn't. No. It's nonsense, little Poff. It's
absurd. And you may spoil so much. . . . I HATE the way you talk
of it. . . . As if it wasn't all--absolutely--RUBBISH. . . ."

She was earnest almost to the intonation of tears.