"That!" Isadore said, jumping at a point of attack, "is, I guess, the fundamental difference between us. You're a sort of mediævalist, living in a realm of romance and fairy stories--ruled over by your instinctive sense of life. You forget that we live in the age of reason. You said liberty consisted in abilities. Well, I believe that abilities bring obligations. Instead of jeering at reason and dialectics, I think it's our preëminent ability. We, reasoning animals, have a duty to use and perfect--and trust--our intellects. And the Socialist theory is the biggest triumph of the human mind. The theory of evolution is the only thing to compare with it. But Darwin had only to fight a superstition. It wasn't much of a feat to convince thinking people that it took more than one hundred and forty-four hours to create the world--then his case was practically won. Marx had to fight not only such theological nonsense, but the entire opposition of the ruling class. Socialism had always been proscribed. A college professor who taught it frankly would lose his job. But it has never had a set-back. It has gathered about it as brilliant a group of intellects as has Darwinism. It's growing steadily. "Having no trust in reason, you are driven back to violence. But I do believe in intelligence. I don't want to hang my hope of the future on such illogical things as dynamite and flying bullets. "If you don't respect intellect and logic, of course you don't sympathize with Socialism. But you can't ask me to give up the results of my own reasoning, backed as they are by the best brains of our times, to accept your imaginings." "I don't ask you to give up Socialism," Walter laughed. "On the contrary, as long as it seems truth to you, give up all the rest. Your ability seems to find its right setting in the party--just as Mabel's does in the trade-unions--just as I'd be ill at ease and useless in either. "The point I want to insist on is my faith that, back of your reasoning and activity and back of my speculations and laziness, this instinctive sense of life is working out its own purpose. Only future generations will be able to know which--if either of us--is right." This argument thrilled and fascinated Yetta. In the years that were to follow she was to hear such debates repeated endlessly. The new circle of friends she was to make were as passionately interested in such questions of social philosophy and ethics as are the art students of Paris in the relative value of line and color or the concept of pure beauty. In time talking would lose its charm; she was to realize that--as Walter had said--it often leads to brain-fag. But this, her first experience, was an immense event. The two men leaned back in their chairs, their faces relaxed. They seemed to have talked themselves out. Yetta turned to Mabel, who sat beside her on the window-seat. "You're not a Socialist?" she asked.