reconstruct civilization out of the ruins. "The trouble is that the
reconstructing brains are never quite good enough, and after a time it is
all to do over again. . . ."

This was by no means a monologue, but evoked in the give and take of
argument with Mr. Osborne, who believed in never yielding an inch to the
demands of labor, and with Mr. Dinwiddie, who, since his association with
the Sophisticates, was looking forward vaguely toward some idealistic
regeneration of the social order, although Socialism was rather out of
date among them, and Bolshevism long since relegated to the attic.

But Clavering was not particularly interested in her political views,
sound as they were. Foreign women of her class, if not as liberal,
always talked intelligently of politics. What interested him keenly was
her deliberate, her quite conscious attempt to enslave the two men beside
her, and her complete success. Occasionally she threw him a word, and
once he fancied she favored him with a glance of secret amused
understanding, but he was thankful to be on the outer edge of that
glamorous crescent. It was enough to watch at a comparatively safe
distance. Would his turn come next, or was she merely bent on so
befuddling these old chaps that there would be no place left in their
enraptured minds for suspicion or criticism? No doubt he was too rank an
outsider. . . . She shot him another glance. . . . Was his to be the
role of the sympathetic friend?

Then she began to draw Dinwiddie and Osborne out, and it struck him that
her attitude was not merely that of the accomplished hostess. They both
talked well, they were intelligent and well-informed, and he was himself
interested in what they had to say on the subject of national politics.
(The Judge, who had an unimpaired digestion, was attending strictly to
his champagne and his dinner.) There was something of anxiety, almost of
wistfulness, in her expression as she listened to one or the other doing
his admirable best to entertain her. They had the charm of crisp
well-modulated voices, these two men of her own class; she had met no
better-bred men in Europe; and their air was as gallant as it had been in
their youth. He had a fleeting vision of what gay dogs they must have
been. Neither had married, but they had been ardent lovers once and
aging women still spoke of them with tender amusement. And yet only the
shell had changed. They had led decent enough lives and no do