As they drove back she revealed another plan to him—she was taking him for a moment to see a friend of hers. He protested. He did not want to see anyone but herself, but Crystal was firm. He must see this woman; she was their celebrated parlor Bolshevist. Ben hated parlor Bolshevists. Did he know any? No. Well, then. Anyhow, Sophia would never forgive her if she did not bring him. Sophia adored celebrities. Sophia who? Sophia Dawson. The name seemed dimly familiar to Ben, and then he remembered. It was the name on the thousand-dollar check for the strike sufferers that had come in the day before. They drove up an avenue of little oaks to a formidable palace built of gray stone, so smoothly faced that there was not a crevice in the immense pale façade. Two men in knee-breeches opened the double doors and they went in between golden grilles and rows of tall white lilies. They were led through a soundless hall, and up stairs so thickly carpeted that the feet sank in as in new-fallen snow, and finally they were ushered through a small painted door into a small painted room, which had been brought all the way from Sienna, and there they found Mrs. Dawson—a beautiful, worn, world-weary Mrs. Dawson, with one streak of gray in the front of her dark hair, her tragic eyes, and her long violet and black draperies—a perfect Sibyl. Crystal did not treat her as a Sibyl, however. “Hullo, Sophie!” she said. “This is my brother-in-law’s brother, Ben Moreton. He’s crazy to meet you. You’ll like him. I can’t stay because I’m dining somewhere or other, but he’s not.” “Will he dine with me?” said Mrs. Dawson in a wonderful deep, slow voice—“just stay on and dine with me alone?” Ben began to say that he couldn’t, but Crystal said yes, that he would be delighted to, and that she would stop for him again about half past nine, and that it was a wonderful plan, and then she went away. Mrs. Dawson seemed to take it all as a matter of course. “Sit down, Mr. Moreton,” she said. “I have a quarrel with you.” Ben could not help feeling a little disturbed by the way he had been injected into Mrs. Dawson’s evening without her volition. He did not sit down. “You know,” he said, “there isn’t any reason why you should have me to dine just because Crystal says so. I do want to thank you for the check you sent in to us for the strike fund. It will do a lot of good.” “Oh, that,” replied Mrs. Dawson. “They are fighting all our battles for us.” “It cheered us up in the office. I wanted to tell you, and now I think I’ll go. I dare say you are dining out, anyhow—” Her eyes flashed at him. “Dining out!” she exclaimed, as if the suggestion insulted her. “You evidently don’t know me. I never dine out. I have nothing in common with these people. I lead a very lonely life. You do me a favor by staying. You and I could exchange ideas. There is no one in Newport whom I can talk to—reactionaries.” “Miss Cord is not exactly a reactionary,” said Ben, sitting down.