bably it was his ungraceful inheritance that made George dislike a
glass in Sylvia's fingers. Dalrymple slipped away.

"Dividends in the smoking-room!" Blodgett roared.

"Dalrymple's drawing dividends," George thought.

The procession for the dining-room formed and disbanded. Blodgett had
Mrs. Sinclair and Sylvia at either hand. It was natural enough, but
George resented the arrangement, particularly with Dalrymple next to
Sylvia on the other side. Betty sat between Dalrymple and Lambert.
George was nearly opposite, flanked by fluffy clothes and hair; and
straightway each ear was choked with fluffy chatter--the theatre; the
opera, from the side of sartorial criticism; the east coast of
Florida--"but why should I go so far to see exciting bathing suits out
of season and tea tables wabbling under palm trees?"--a scandal or
two--that is such details as were permissible in his presence. He
divided his ears sufficiently to catch snatches from neighbouring
sections of the table.

"Of course, we'll keep out of it."

It was Wandel, speaking encouragingly to a pretty girl. Out of what?
Confound this chatter! Oh! The war, of course. It was the one remark of
serious import that reached him throughout the dinner, and the country
faced that possibility, and an increasing unrest of labour, and grave
financial questions. The diners might have been people who had fled to a
high mountain to escape an invasion, or happy ones who lived on a peak
from which the menace was invisible. But it wasn't that. At other social
levels, he knew, there was the same closing of the shutters, the same
effort to create an enjoyable sunlight in a cloistered room. On the
summit, he honestly believed, men did more and thought more. Perhaps
where sensible men gathered together the curtains weren't drawn against
grave fires in an abnormal night. Then it was the women. Did all men,
like Wandel, choose to keep such things from the women? Did the women
want them kept? Hang it! Then let them have the vote. Make them talk.

"You're really not going to Palm Beach, Mr. Morton?"

"I've too much to do."

"Men amuse me," the young lady fluffed. "They always talk about things
to do. If one has a good time the things get done just the same."

God! What a point of view! Yet he wasn't one to pass judgment since he
was more interested in the winning of Sylvia than he was in the winning
of the war.

He watched her as he could, talking first to Blodgett then to Dalr