deal more about some things by the time I see you again."
Then, with one of her darting bird-like movements, she ran down the
steps and into the car. "I wish Father were here," she said, looking out
at him. "He wants to talk to you."

"I should like to talk to him. I shall come again, if I may."

"Oh, of course, and next time we may both be at home." As the car
started she called out teasingly. "My next maneuver may be more
successful, you know!"

How provoking she was, and how inspiriting! Was she as shrewd, as
sophisticated, as she tried to appear, or was he merely, he asked
himself, the victim of her irrepressible humour, of a prodigious display
of the modern spirit? At least she was a part of her time--not, like
Margaret and himself, a discordant note, a divergent atom, in the
general march toward recklessness and unrestraint. Young as she was, he
felt that she had already solved the problems which he had evaded or
pushed aside. She had learned the secret of transition--a perpetual
motion that went in circles and was never still. Here, he realized, was
where he had lost connection, where he had failed to hold his place in
the turmoil. He had tried to stand off and reach a point of view, to
become a spectator, while the only way to fit into the century was
simply to keep moving in whirls of unintelligent unison; never to
meditate, never to reason upon one's course; but to sweep onward,
somewhere, anywhere as long as it was in a new direction. Elasticity,
variability--were not these the indispensable qualities of the modern
mind? The power to make quick decisions and the inability to cling to
convictions; the nervous high pitch and the failure to sustain the
triumphant note; energy without direction; success without stability;
martyrdom without faith. And around, above, beneath, the pervading
mediocrity, the apotheosis of the average. Was this the best that
democracy had to offer mankind? Was there no depth below the shallows?
Was it impossible, even by the most patient search, to discover some
justification of the formlessness of the age, of the crazy instinct for
ugliness? He could forgive it all, he might eventually bring his mind to
believe in it, if there were only some logical design informing the
disorder. If he could find that it contained a single redeeming
principle that was superior to the old order, he felt that he should be
able to surrender his disbelief.

He was leaving the gate when a woman, walkin