Cord, I am."
"Then what do you want to talk economics for? Or is it done like that
nowadays?"
"I don't want to," answered Eddie, almost in a wail. "_She_ does. She
gets me going and then we quarrel because she has terrible opinions.
She talks wildly. I have to point out to her that she's wrong. And
last night she told me"--Eddie glanced about to be sure he was not
overheard--"she told me that she was a socialist."
Mr. Cord had just lit the very cigar which Eddie had waved away, and
he took the first critical puffs at it before he answered:
"Did you ask her what that was?"
"No--no--I didn't."
"Missed a trick there, Eddie."
It was impossible to accuse so masklike a magnate of frivolity, but
Eddie was often dissatisfied with Mr. Cord's reactions to the serious
problems of life.
"But don't you think it's terrible," he went on, eagerly, "for Crystal
to be a socialist? In this age of the world--civilization trembling on
the brink--chaos"--Eddie made a gesture toward the perfectly ordered
shelves containing _Poor's Manual_--"staring us in the face? You say
that the half-baked opinions of an immature girl make no difference?"
"No, I shouldn't say that--at least not to Crystal," murmured her
father.
"But the mere fact that she picks up such ideas proves that they are
in the air about us and that terrifies me--terrifies me," ended Eddie,
his voice rising as he saw that his host intended to remain perfectly
calm.
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