Dick's voice roused me from my unpleasant reverie.
"No," he said, "I thought you would not be able to. None of them
can."
"None of them can what?" I asked. Somehow I was feeling angry with
Dick and with Dick's cat, and with myself and most other things.
"Why talk love or any other kind of sentiment before old Pyramids
here?" he replied, stroking the cat's soft head as it rose and
arched its back.
"What's the confounded cat got to do with it?" I snapped.
"That's just what I can't tell you," he answered, "but it's very
remarkable. Old Leman dropped in here the other evening and began
in his usual style about Ibsen and the destiny of the human race,
and the Socialistic idea and all the rest of it--you know his way.
Pyramids sat on the edge of the table there and looked at him, just
as he sat looking at you a few minutes ago, and in less than a
quarter of an hour Leman had come to the conclusion that society
would do better without ideals and that the destiny of the human
race was in all probability the dust heap. He pushed his long hair
back from his eyes and looked, for the first time in his life,
quite sane.
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