d impulses, "Isn't it
ridiculous that we can never get away from Gideon Vetch?"

The Judge laughed softly. "He has a pushing manner," he returned; and
then, still curiously pursuing the subject: "Perhaps, he may get his
revenge at the meeting Thursday night."

"Is there to be a meeting?" retorted Corinna indifferently. She was
thinking, "When John is eighty he will look like Father. I shall be
seventy-eight when he is eighty. All those years to live, and nothing
in them but little pleasures, little kindnesses, little plans and
ambitions. Charity boards and committee meetings and bridge. That is
what life is--just pretending that little things are important."

"That's the strikers' meeting," the Judge was saying over his glass of
sherry. "The next one is John's idea. We hope to arbitrate. If we can
get Vetch interested there may be a settlement of some sort."

"So it's Vetch again! Oh, I am getting so tired of the name of Gideon
Vetch!" laughed Corinna. And she thought, "If only I didn't have to play
on the flute all my life. If I could only stop playing dance music for a
little while, and break out into a funeral march!"

"He has already agreed to come," said Benham, "but I expect nothing from
him. I have formed the habit of expecting nothing from Vetch."

"Well, I don't know," replied the Judge. "We may persuade him to stand
firm, if there hasn't been an understanding between him and those
people." The old gentleman always used the expression "those people" for
persons of whose opinions he disapproved.

"You know what I think of Vetch," rejoined Benham, with a shrug.

It seemed to Corinna, watching Benham with her thoughtful gaze,
that the subject would never change, that they would argue all
night over their foolish strike and their tiresome meeting, and
over what this Gideon Vetch might or might not do in some problematic
situation. What sentimentalists men were! They couldn't understand,
after the experience of a million years, that the only things
that really counted in life were human relations. They were obliged
to go on playing a game of bluff with their consecrated
superstitions--playing--playing--playing--and yet hiding behind some
graven image of authority which they had built out of stone.
Sentimental, yes, and pathetic too, when one thought of it with
patience.

When dinner was over, and the Judge had gone to a concert in town,
Corinna's mockery fell from her, and she sat in a long silence watchin