"I'm not so sure about that." James liked to look his conscience in the face occasionally. "I respect the rights of my fellows. In the money centers you can't do that and win. And you've got to win. It doesn't matter how. Make good-- make good! Get money--any way you can. People will soon forget how you got it, if you have it.""Dear me! I didn't know you were so given to moral reflections." To Alice, who had just come into the room to settle where they should spend their Sunday, Valencia explained with mock demureness the subject of their talk. "Mr. Farnum and I are deploring the immoral money madness of New York and the debilitating effects of modern civilization. Will you deplore with us, my dear?"The younger woman's glance included the cigarette James had thrown away and the one her cousin was still smoking. "Why go as far as New York?" she asked quietly.
Farnum flushed. She was right, he silently agreed. He had no business futtering away his time in a pink boudoir. Nor could he explain that he hoped his time was not being wasted.
"I must be going," he said as casually as he could.
"Don't let me drive you away, Mr. Farnum. I dropped in only for a moment.""Not at all. I have an appointment with my cousin.""With Mr. Jefferson Farnum?" Alice asked in awakened interest. "I've just been reading a magazine article about him. Is he really a remarkable man?""I don't think you would call him remarkable. He gets things done, in spite of being an idealist.""Why, in spite of it?"
"Aren't reformers usually unpractical?"
"Are they? I don't know. I have never met one." She looked straight at Farnum with the directness characteristic of her. "Is the article in Stetson's Magazine true?""Substantially, I think."
Alice hesitated. She would have liked to pursue the subject, but she could not very well do that with his cousin. For years she had been hearingof this man as a crank agitator who had set himself in opposition to her father and his friends for selfish reasons. Her father had dropped vague hints about his unsavory life. The Stetson write-up had given a very different story. If it told the truth, many things she had been brought up to accept without question would bear study.
James suavely explained. "The facts are true, but not the inferences from the facts. Jeff takes rather a one-sided view of a very complex situation. But he's perfectly honest in it, so far as that goes.""You voted for his bill, didn't you?" Alice asked.
"Yes, I voted for it. But I said on the floor I didn't believe in it. My feeling was that the people ought to have a chance to express an opinion in regard to it.""Why don't you believe in it?"
Valencia lifted her perfect eyebrows. "Really, my dear, I didn't know you were so interested in politics."Alice waited for the young man's answer.
