"I think I feel it--after a fashion," he said, mildly; "I think
I have always felt the attraction of community life."

Afterward, when they had left all this somnolent peace and begun
the long walk back to the station, he explained what he meant:
"I couldn't say so before the Eldress, but of course there are times
when anybody can feel the charm of getting rid of personal responsibility--
and that is what community life really means. It's the relief
of being a little cog in a big machine; in fact, the very attraction
of it is a sort of temptation, to my way of looking at it.
But it--well, it made me sleepy," he confessed.

For once his wife had no reply. She was very quiet on that return
journey in the cars, and in the days that followed she kept referring
to their visit with a persistence that surprised her husband.
She thought the net caps were beautiful; she thought the exquisite
cleanness of everything was like a perfume--"the perfume of a wild rose!"
she said, ecstatically. She thought the having everything in common
was the way to live. "And just think how peaceful it is!"

"Well, yes," Lewis said; "I suppose it's peaceful--after a fashion.
Anything that isn't alive is peaceful."

"But their idea of brotherhood is the highest kind of life!"

"The only fault I have to find with it is that it isn't human,"
he said, mildly. He had no desire to prove or disprove anything;
Athalia was looking better, just because she was interested
in something, and that was enough for Lewis. When she proposed to read
a book on Shakerism aloud, he fell into her mood with what was,