ect Sibyl.

Crystal did not treat her as a Sibyl, however. "Hullo, Sophie!" she
said. "This is my brother-in-law's brother, Ben Moreton. He's crazy to
meet you. You'll like him. I can't stay because I'm dining somewhere
or other, but he's not."

"Will he dine with me?" said Mrs. Dawson in a wonderful deep, slow
voice--"just stay on and dine with me alone?"

Ben began to say that he couldn't, but Crystal said yes, that he would
be delighted to, and that she would stop for him again about half past
nine, and that it was a wonderful plan, and then she went away.

Mrs. Dawson seemed to take it all as a matter of course. "Sit down,
Mr. Moreton," she said. "I have a quarrel with you."

Ben could not help feeling a little disturbed by the way he had been
injected into Mrs. Dawson's evening without her volition. He did not
sit down.

"You know," he said, "there isn't any reason why you should have me
to dine just because Crystal says so. I do want to thank you for
the check you sent in to us for the strike fund. It will do a lot of
good."

"Oh, that," replied Mrs. Dawson. "They are fighting all our battles
for us."

"It cheered us up in the office. I wanted to tell you, and now I think
I'll go. I dare say you are dining out, anyhow--"

Her eyes flashed at him. "Dining out!" she exclaimed, as if the
suggestion insulted her. "You evidently don't know me. I never dine
out. I have nothing in common with these people. I lead a very lonely
life. You do me a favor by staying. You and I could exchange ideas.
There is no one in Newport whom I can talk to--reactionaries."

"Miss Cord is not exactly a reactionary," said Ben, sitting down.

Mrs. Dawson smiled. "Crystal is not a reactionary; Crystal is a
child," she replied. "But what can you expect of William
Cord's daughter? He is a dangerous and disintegrating
force--cold--cynical--he feels not the slightest public responsibility
for his possessions." Mrs. Dawson laid her hand on her heart as if
it were weighted with all her jewels and footmen and palaces. "Most
Bourbons are cynical about human life, but he goes farther; he is
cynical about his own wealth. And that brings me to my quarrel with
you, Mr. Moreton. How could you let your brother spend his beautiful
vigorous youth as a parasite to Cord's vapid son? Was that consistent
with your beliefs?"

This attack on his consistency from a lady whose consistency seemed
even more flagrant amused Ben, but as he listened he wa