The busy ones are thinking only of making money
for themselves, and the idle ones are too enfeebled by luxury to
think at all. No, I'm afraid there's no hope for Hull--or for
Jane either.''
``I'm not sure about Miss Hastings,'' said Victor.
``You would have been if you'd seen her to-day,'' replied Selma.
``Oh, she was lovely, Victor--really wonderful to look at. But
so obviously the idler. And-- body and soul she belongs to the
upper class. She understands charity, but she doesn't understand
justice, and never could understand it. I shall let her alone
hereafter.''
``How harsh you women are in your judgments of each other,''
laughed Dorn, busy at his desk.
``We are just,'' replied Selma. ``We are not fooled by each
other's pretenses.''
Dorn apparently had not heard. Selma saw that to speak would be
to interrupt. She sat at her own table and set to work on the
editorial paragraphs. After perhaps an hour she happened to
glance at Victor. He was leaning back in his chair, gazing past
her out into the open; in his face was an expression she had
never seen--a look in the eyes, a relaxing of the muscles round
the mouth that made her think of him as a man instead of as a
leader. She was saying to herself. ``What a fascinating man he
would have been, if he had not been an incarnate cause.''
She felt that he was not thinking of his work. She longed to
talk to him, but she did not venture to interrupt.
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