e nowadays is that the simplest of them are too busy trying to
find somebody just a little simpler to sting. Darned if they don't
usually hook one. Still bum securities are a great weakness with most
people. Promise a man a hundred per cent. and he'll complain it isn't a
hundred and fifty."

George reflected that Rogers was bound for disillusionment, then he
wasn't so sure, for America seemed more than ever friendly to that
brisk, insincere, back-bending type. Out of the sea of money formed by
the war examples sprang up on nearly every side, scarcely troubled by
racial, religious, or educational handicaps; loudly convinced that they
could buy with money all at once every object of matter or spirit the
centuries had painstakingly evolved. One night in the crowds of the
theatre district, when with Wandel he had watched the hysterical
competition for tickets, cabs, and tables in restaurants where the
prices of indigestion had soared nearly beyond belief, he burst out
angrily:

"The world is mad, Driggs. I wouldn't be surprised to hear these people
cry for golden gondolas to float them home on rivers of money. Stark,
raving mad, Driggs! The world's out of its head!"

Wandel smiled, twirling his cane.

"Just found it out, great man? Always has been; always will be--chronic!
This happens to be a violent stage."

XII

It was Wandel, indeed, who drew George from his preoccupation, and
reminded him that another world existed as yet scarcely more than
threatened by the driving universal invaders. George had looked in at
his apartment one night when Wandel was just back from a northern
week-end.

"Saw Sylvia. You know, George, she's turning back the years and prancing
like a debutante."

George sat down, uneasy, wondering what the other's unprepared
announcement was designed to convey.

"I'll lay you what you want," Wandel went on, lighting a cigar, "that
she forgets the Blodgett fiasco, and marries before snow falls."

Had it been designed as a warning? George studied Wandel, trying to read
his expression, but the light was restricted by heavy, valuable, and
smothering shades; and Wandel sat at some distance from the nearest,
close to a window to catch what breezes stole through. Confound the man!
What was he after? He hadn't mentioned Sylvia that self-revealing day in
France; but George had guessed then that he must have known of his
persistent ambition, and had wondered why his unexpected
communicativeness hadn'