She smiled--but not at the surface. In fact, his political talk
had bored her. She knew nothing about the subject, and, so, had
been as one listening to an unknown language. But, like all
women, having only the narrowest range of interests herself and
the things that would enable her to show off to advantage, she
was used to being bored by the conversational efforts of men and
to concealing her boredom. She had listened patiently and had
led the conversation by slow, imperceptible stages round to the
interesting personal-- to the struggle for dominion over this
difficult male.

``Anyhow,'' he went on, ``no intelligent person could fail to be
interested in politics, once he or she appreciated what it meant.

And people of our class owe it to society to take part in
politics. Victor Dorn is a crank, but he's right about some
things--and he's right in saying that we of the upper class are
parasites upon the masses. They earn all the wealth, and we take
a large part of it away from them. And it's plain stealing
unless we give some service in return. For instance, you and
I--what have we done, what are we doing that entitles us to draw
so much? Somebody must earn by hard labor all that is produced.
We are not earning. So''--he was looking handsome now in his
manly earnestness--``Jen, it's up to us to do our share--to stop
stealing--isn't it?''

She was genuinely interested. ``I hadn't thought of these
things,'' said she.