), "and it was all the more
wonderful because, it seemed to me, you were both talking about things
you knew nothing about."

"What do you mean?" burst from both men with simultaneous
astonishment.

"Ben, dear, father doesn't know any radicals--except you, and he's
only seen you twice. Father dear, I don't believe Ben ever talked
five minutes with an able, successful conservative until he came here
to-day."

"You're going to throw me over, Crystal?" said Ben, seeing her pose
more clearly than he heard her words.

"No," said Mr. Cord, bitterly, "she's going to throw over an old man
in favor of a young one."

"You silly creatures," said Crystal, with a smile that made the words
affectionate and not rude. "How can I ever throw either of you over?
I'm going to be Ben's wife, and I am my father's daughter. I'm going
to be those two things for all my life."

Ben took her hand. She puzzled him, but he adored her. "But some
day, Crystal," he said, "you will be obliged to choose between our
views--mine or your father's. You must see that."

"He's right," her father chimed in. "This is not a temporary
difference of opinion, you know, Crystal. This cleavage is as old as
mankind--the radical against the conservative. Time doesn't reconcile
them."

Again the idea came to her: "They do love to form gangs, the poor
dears." Aloud she said: "Yes, but the two types are rarely pure ones.
Why, father, you think Ben is a radical, but he's the most hidebound
conservative about some things--much worse than you--about free verse,
for instance. I read a long editorial about it not a month ago. He
really thinks anyone who defends it ought to be deported to some
poetic limbo. Ben, you think my father is conservative. But there's a
great scandal in his mental life. He's a Baconian--"

"He thinks Bacon wrote the plays!" exclaimed Ben, really shocked.

"Certainly I do," answered Mr. Cord. "Every man who uses his mind must
think so. There is nothing in favor of the Shakespeare theory, except
tradition--"

He would have talked for several hours upon the subject, but Crystal
interrupted him by turning to Ben and continuing what she had meant to
say:

"When you said I should have to choose between your ideas, you meant
between your political ideas. Perhaps I shall, but I won't make my
choice, rest assured, until I have some reason for believing that each
of you knows something--honestly knows something about the other one's
point of vie