m a part of it," he answered slowly. "I see it as it is, I
think. It is pure buncombe, of course, to say that it hasn't its ugly
side; but I believe, if I have a chance, that I can make something of
it." He paused a moment while he hesitated over the silver beside his
plate; but there was no uncertainty in his voice when he went on again,
after deliberately picking up the fork he preferred. It was a little
thing to remember a man by--the merest trifle--but she never forgot it.
Only a big man could be as natural as that, she reflected. "I reasoned
it all out before I went into politics," he was saying. "I didn't get it
out of books either--unless you count the Bible and 'Robinson Crusoe,'
which are the only two I ever read as a boy. But the way I worked it out
at last was that democracy, like life, isn't anything that's already
finished. It is raw stuff. We are making it every minute of the time;
and it depends on us whether we put it through as a straight job or a
failure. Democracy, as I see it, isn't a word or a phrase out of a book,
or a formula, or anything that has frozen into a fixed shape or pattern.
It is warm and fluid, and it is teeming with living forms. It is as much
alive as the earth or air or water, and it can be used to develop as
many varying energies. That is why it is all so amazingly interesting.
As long as you don't fall away from that thought you have your feet
planted on solid ground--you can face things squarely--"

"You preach a kind of political pragmatism," she said as he paused.

"Pragmatism? That's a muscular word, but I don't know it. I wonder if
Robinson Crusoe discovered it."

"If Robinson Crusoe didn't discover it, he lived it," she rejoined
gaily; and then, as the voice of Mrs. Berkeley was heard purring softly
on Vetch's other side, Corinna turned to the bewhiskered General, whose
only sense, she had already ascertained, was the historic sense.

While she leaned back, with her head bent in the direction of his husky
voice, she was visited by a piercing realization of the emptiness, the
artificiality of her life. Futility--weariness--disenchantment--a gray
lane without a turning that stretched on into nothingness! Many thoughts
were blown through her mind like leaves in a high wind. She saw herself
from the beginning--striving without rest--searching--searching--for
what? For happiness--for perfection--for the starry flower that she had
never found. All was tawdry, all was tarnished,