as one of the egotistic impulses
of the unregenerate human heart.

Between the two extremes represented by shabby, crack-brained Cousin
Parnelia and elegant, sardonic old Professor Kennedy, there were many
other habitual visitors at the house--raw, earnest, graceless students
of both sexes, touchingly grateful for the home atmosphere they were
allowed to enter; a bushy-haired Single-tax fanatic named Hecht, who
worked in the iron-foundries by day, and wrote political pamphlets by
night; Miss Lindstroem, the elderly Swedish woman laboring among
the poor negroes of Flytown; a constant sprinkling from the
Scandinavian-Americans whose well-kept truck-farms filled the region
near the Marshall home; one-armed Mr. Howell, the editor of a luridly
radical Socialist weekly paper, whom Judith called in private the
"old puss-cat" on account of his soft, rather weak voice and mild,
ingratiating ways. Yes, the co-ed had been right, one met at the
Marshalls' every variety of person except the exclusive.

These habitues of the house came and went with the greatest
familiarity. As they all knew there was no servant to answer the
doorbell, they seldom bothered to ring, but opened the door, stepped
into the hall, hung up their wraps on the long line of hooks, and went
into the big, low-ceilinged living-room. If nobody was there, they
usually took a book from one of the shelves lining the room and sat
down before the fire to wait. Sometimes they stayed to the next
meal and helped wash up the dishes afterwards. Sometimes they had a
satisfactory visit with each other, two or three callers happening to
meet together before the fire, and went away without having seen any
of the Marshalls. Informality could go no further.

The only occurrence in the Marshall life remotely approaching the
regularity and formality of a real social event was the weekly meeting
of the string quartet which Professor Marshall had founded soon after
his arrival in La Chance.

It was on Sunday evening that the quartet met regularly for their
seance. Old Reinhardt, the violin teacher, was first violin and
leader; Mr. Bauermeister (in everyday life a well-to-do wholesale
plumber) was second violin; Professor Marshall played the viola, and
old Professor Kennedy bent his fine, melancholy face over the 'cello.
Any one who chose might go to the Marshall house on Sunday evenings,
on condition that he should not talk during the music, and did not
expect any attention.