The Beauty and the Bolshevist | Page 7

see that at all. Just as well, perhaps. You don't want to get yourself into such a position as poor Eugenia."
"I do, I would. I'd give anything to be as much in love as Eugenia."
"What? With a fellow like that! A complete outsider."
"Outside of what? The human race?"
"Well, no," said Eddie, as if he were yielding a good deal, "but outside of your traditions and your set."
"My set! Good for him to be outside of it, I say. What have they ever done to make anyone want to be inside of it? Why, David is an educated gentleman. To hear him quote Horace--"
"Horace who?"
"Really, Eddie."
"Oh, I see. You mean the poet. That's nothing to laugh at, Crystal. It was a natural mistake. I thought, of course, you meant some of those anarchists who want to upset the world."
Crystal looked at him more honestly and seriously than she had yet done.
"Well, don't you think there is something wrong with the present arrangement of things, Eddie?"
"No, I don't, and I hate to hear you talk like a socialist."
"I am a socialist."
"You're nothing of the kind."
"I suppose I know what I am."
"Not at all--not at all."
"I certainly think the rich are too rich, while the poor are so horridly poor."
"_You'd_ get on well without your maid and your car and your father's charge accounts at all the shops, wouldn't you?"
Though agreeable to talk seriously if you agree, it is correspondingly dangerous if you disagree. Crystal stood up, trembling with an emotion which Eddie, although he was rather angry himself, considered utterly unaccountable.
"Yes," she said, almost proudly, "I am luxurious, I am dependent on those things. But whose fault is that? It's the way I was brought up--it's all wrong. But, even though I am dependent on them, I believe I could exist without them. I'd feel like killing myself if I didn't think so. Sometimes I want to go away and find out if I couldn't live and be myself without all this background of luxury. But at the worst--I'm just one girl--suppose I were weak and couldn't get on without them? That wouldn't prove that they are right. I'm not so blinded that I can't see that a system by which I profit may still be absolutely wrong. But you always seem to think, Eddie, that it's part of the Constitution of the United States that you should have everything you've always had."
Eddie rose, too, with the manner of a man who has allowed things to go far enough. "Look here, my dear girl," he said, "I am a man and I'm older than you, and have seen more of the world. I know you don't mean any harm, but I must tell you that this is very wicked, dangerous talk."
"Dangerous, perhaps, Eddie, but I can't see how it can be wicked to want to give up your special privileges."
"Where in the world do you pick up ideas like this?"
"I inherited them from an English ancestor of mine, who gave up all that he had when he enlisted in Washington's army."
"You got that stuff," said Eddie, brushing this aside, "from David Moreton, and that infernal seditious paper his brother edits--and that white-livered book which I haven't read against war. I'd like to put them all in jail."
"It's a pity," said Crystal, "that your side can't think of a better argument than putting everyone who disagrees with you in jail."
With this she turned and left him, and, entering the ballroom, flung herself into the arms of the first partner she met. It was a timid boy, who, startled by the eagerness with which she chose him, with her bright eyes and quickly drawn breath, was just coming to the conclusion that a lovely, rich, and admired lady, had fallen passionately in love with him, when with equal suddenness she stepped out of his arms and was presently driving her small, open car down the avenue.
Under the purple beech Eddie, left alone, sank back on the stone bench and considered, somewhat as the persecutors of Socrates may have done, suitable punishments for those who put vile, revolutionary ideas into the heads of young and lovely women.
In the meantime Ben, who had enjoyed the party more than most of the invited guests, and far more than the disconsolate Eddie, had left his vantage point at the window. He had suddenly become aware of a strange light stealing under the trees, and, looking up, he saw with surprise that the stars were growing small and the heavens turning steel-color--in fact, that it was dawn.
Convinced that sunrise was a finer sight than the end of the grandest ball that ever was given, he made his way down a shabby back lane, and before long came out on the edge of the cliffs, with the whole panorama of