Soul and the Gilded Youth walking around the court as they used to
pace the deck together. Once or twice they passed our window, and
we heard their voices. They were having some sort of a tall talk
on philosophical matters, which annoyed Henry. The ocean and onion
soup and philosophical theorizing never seemed reasonable, normal
expressions of anything properly in the cosmos to Henry; he professed
to believe that persons who tolerated these things would sooner
or later be caught using the words "group" and "reaction" and
"hypothesis," and he would have none of them. But for all that she
used the word group and once confessed that she was a subscriber
to the New Republic, Henry did like the Eager Soul; so he waked me
up from a doze to say: "Bill, she's putting him through the eye of
the needle all right. And he's sliding through slick as goose-grease. I
heard him telling her a minute ago that the war isn't for boundaries
and geography; but for a restatement of human creeds. Then she said
that steam and electricity have over-capitalized the world; that
we are paying too highly for superintendence and that the price
of superintendence must come down, and wages must come up. Then
he said that he and his class will go in the fires burning out
there--melted like wax. And she told him that they both had a lot
of stolen goods on them--bodies and minds, and hearts cultivated at
the expense of their fellow creatures whose lives had been narrowed
that theirs might be broadened. And you should have heard her talk
about the Young Doctor--a self-made man, who had earned his way through
college and medical school, and made his own place professionally.
She said he was the Herald of the New Day. Bill," sighed Henry,
"what would you give if you could talk like that--again?" But from
me, drowsily, came this: "Henry--do you suppose she will get around
to that slapping tonight she promised him on the boat? That would
be worth staying up to see!"