Cavan looked startled as if he had forgotten all about it, rubbed his forehead with one hand abruptly. “I’ve been busy with other things,” he said. He looked over at George, as if he were measuring him. “I’ve been troubled, too troubled to do any work lately. It’s a bad time, George.”

The first name made the difference. “Yes, sir.” George fumbled for the right answer, but couldn’t find it. As he raised his eyes he met in Cavan’s a look of naked appeal, but for what? He did not know what he was being asked now, what the question in the air between them really was.

“It’s like a creeping paralysis of the nerves—you don’t know where to begin, how to fight it.” George felt as if an enormous cloud were settling down over Cavan now. He sat hunched over, looking down into his cup, everything in his face withdrawn.

“I don’t think I know—I don’t understand—” he stammered.

The look Cavan shot him was like a blow; it was hostile. “You never knew what a liberal world was like,” he said harshly. “How could you? You were four or five at the time of the Spanish War; you can hardly remember the New Deal.”

It’s not my fault, George wanted to say, but he just waited.

“But it should mean something to you that professors in our colleges and universities are being fired for nonconformist ideas, that it’s becoming a crime to subscribe to the Nation, that everywhere in this country fear is taking the place of reason.” The words fell hard and fast as if they were meant to shock.

“It’s bad, I know,” George said, “but isn’t there always a period of reaction after a war?”

“The historical point of view is nothing to hide behind. My God”—Cavan brought his fist down on the table—“I heard people say about Hitler that all tyrants fail eventually. Let’s be detached and wait while millions of human beings are slaughtered; it’ll all come right in the end, won’t it?” He was furiously angry, it seemed.

“I didn’t mean——”

“You have to fight at the very beginning—otherwise it’s too late.”

“Yes, sir,” George said helplessly.

The deep-set blue eyes focused on him—bleakly—and then looked away. Cavan put out his cigarette with a gesture of impatience. “I’m sorry,” he said. He smiled, but it was the smile of effort and the effort told. He looked ten years older suddenly. “We’ll talk about all this some other time,” he said, getting up to go.