‘Didn’t know you knew my boy, Miss Staybridge.’

‘Oh, I don’t, really. I’ve just met him at dances.’

‘That’s probably the best place to meet him. I’d steer clear of him in the classroom.’

‘Don’t you guarantee him?’

‘Well, he uses an awful lot of oil and gas and he backfires going uphill, not down, and his brakes are slipping. But he’s got a nice three-coat finish, and I kind of like him.’

‘So do I!’

Everyone else was lounging; everyone was chattering; Hazel was explaining to Gene Silga what a wonderful time they had had at the Egeria Club when they had entertained a pupil of Dale Carnegie, who had informed them that the ability to express one’s self on one’s feet was as important to a clubwoman as it was even to a senator or a lubricant salesman. But Annabel sat straight, her hands folded in her lap, her eyes straight ahead, in a trance. Her lips seemed very soft; Fred thought that they would tremble, if she was hurt. She seemed to him made not of patches of prejudice and unimportant informations, like the rest, but to be all of one piece, clear and sure and kind.

‘She’ll fall in love with Howard because he looks like a movie star, and then keep it up because she’ll be sorry for him,’ sighed Fred to himself. ‘He’ll wear her out. Here, quit it! Don’t crab about your own son. Way Annabel’s looking round, guess she likes it here — kind of free and easy — or would be if Sara wasn’t so doggone high-minded — in comparison with Staybridge, that old stiff. But Annabel — got the friendliest eyes I ever saw — friendly ‘s a pup — I’d like to have Howard safely married to a good loyal girl like her, but do I want to see HER married to a loafer? Duties of parents? Someday I’ll chuck the lot of ’em . . . I won’t!’

By request of Sara, Eugene Silga outstayed Annabel and Guy. After ten minutes’ discussion of the fact that, if he started in five minutes, he could be in Truxon at a fair hour, Howard went up to bed; and Eugene and Fred, with the Cornplow women for gallery, circled about each other.

Let us be clear about the political activities of Eugene Silga. He was not at all like the melodramatic Bolsheviks of British detective stories; he had no secret gang with an abbey crypt for hideout, no beautiful phoney countess (in black with a platinum dog collar) for spy. Fred suspected that Sara’s radical toying, suddenly become so active this evening, meant nothing more than a desire to be important, to be Different, and to associate with romantic young men. But Gene’s purpose was clear. He had hated the bland and rich ever since his infanthood in a riverside slum in Brooklyn. Making his way at City College of New York by pressing clothes had not improved his benevolence. He wanted power and revenge; he was willing to risk death in the hope of smashing the entire democratic system and winding up with the factory workers dictatorially running the country, and himself running the workers.