Through her quick resentment she let herself be caught in a corner, as
it were. Everyone was preparing to leave the house for a dance in
benefit of some local charity. Momentarily they were left alone. He
indicated the over-luxurious and rather tasteless room.

"You're asking for the confiscation of all this, and your own Oakmont,
and every delightful setting to which you've been accustomed all your
life. You're asking for rationed food; for a shakedown, maybe, in a
garret. You're asking for a task in a kitchen or a field. Why not a
negro's kitchen; a Chinaman's field?"

He looked at her, asking gravely:

"Do you quite understand the principles of communism as they affect
women?"

He fancied a heightening of her colour.

"You of all men," she said, "ought to understand the strivings of the
people."

He shook his head vehemently.

"I'm for the palace," he laughed, "and I fancy it means more to me than
it could to a man who's never used his brain. Let those stay in the
hovel who haven't the courage to climb out."

"And you're one of the people!" she murmured. "One of the people!"

"You don't say that," he answered, quickly, "to tell me it makes me
admirable in your eyes. You say it to hurt, as you used to call me,
'groom'. It doesn't inflict the least pain."

There was no question about her flush now.

"Tell me," he urged, "why you permit your brain such inconsistencies,
why you accept such a patent fad, why you need fads at all?"

"Why won't you leave me alone?" she asked, harshly.

"You're always asking that," he smiled, "and you see I never do. Why are
you unlike these other women? Why did you turn to Blodgett? Why have you
made a fool of Dalrymple?"

She stared at him.

"What are you saying?"

"I'm saying, why don't you come to me?"

He watched the angry challenge in her eyes, the deliberate stiffening of
her entire body as if to a defensive attitude. He held out his hand to
her.

"Sylvia! We are growing old."

Yet in her radiant presence it was preposterous to speak of age. She
drew away with a sort of shudder.

"You wouldn't dare touch me again----"

He captured her glance. He felt that from his own eyes he failed to keep
the unsatisfied desire of years.

"I haven't forgotten Upton, either. When will you give me what I want,
Sylvia?"

Her glance eluded him. Swiftly she receded. Through the open door
drifted a growing medley of voices. She hurried to the door, but he
followed her,