"That's a stupendous indictment these days," he said with a smile, but he didn't take her seriously at all, didn't apply her charge to his soul. "I'm so glad you're here," he went on, "that we're to be together. I've wanted it for a long time. You must know that." She gave him an uncomfortable sense of being captive, of seeking blindly any course to freedom. "I no longer know anything about you. I don't care to know." Lambert and Dalrymple strolled in. Dalrymple opened the cage. George moved away, aching to prevent such interference by any means he could. His emotion made him uneasy. To what resolution were his relations with Dalrymple drifting? How far was he capable of going to keep the other in his place? He stood by the mantel, speaking only when it was necessary and then without consciousness, his whole interest caught by the picture Dalrymple and Sylvia made, close together by the centre table in the soft light of a reading lamp. A servant entered with cocktails. George's interest sharpened. Betty took hers with the others. Only Sylvia and Dalrymple shook their heads. Clearly it was an understanding between them--a little denial of hers to make his infinitely greater one less difficult. She smiled up at him, indeed, comprehendingly; but George's glance didn't waver from Dalrymple, and it caught an increase in the other's restlessness, a following nearly hypnotic, by thoughtful eyes, of the tray with the little glasses as it passed around the room. George relaxed. He was conscious enough of Blodgett's bellow: "Here's to the blushing bride!" What lack of taste! But how much greater the lack of taste that restless inheritor exposed! Couldn't even join a formal toast, didn't dare probably, or was it that he only dared not risk it in public, in front of Sylvia? And she pandered to his weakness, smiled upon it as if it were an epic strength. He was sufficiently glad now that Dalrymple had got into him for so much money. IV For George dinner was chiefly a sea of meaningless chatter continually ruffled by the storm of Blodgett's voice. "Your brother tells me," he said to Sylvia, "that you're irritating yourself with socialism." She looked at him with a little interest then. "I've been reading. It's quite extraordinary. Odd I should have lived so long without really knowing anything about such things." "Not odd at all," George contradicted her. "I should call it odd that you find any interest in them now. Why do you?" "One has to occupy one's mind," she answered. He glanced at her. Why did she have to occupy herself with matter she couldn't possibly understand, that she would interpret always in a wrong or unsafe manner? She, too, was restless. That was the only possible explanation. From Blodgett she had sprung to war-time fads. From those she had leaped at this convenient one which tempted people to make sparkling and meaningless phrases.