Sam believed him to be without moral sense; he knew
him to be able and honest and he found in the association with him a fund
of odd little sweetnesses of character and action that lent an
inexpressible charm to the person of his friend.
It was through Morrison that Sam had his first serious misunderstanding
with Sue. One evening the brilliant young advertising man dined at the
McPhersons'. The table, as usual, was filled with Sue's new friends, among
them a tall, gaunt man who, with the arrival of the coffee, began in a
high-pitched, earnest voice to talk of the coming social revolution. Sam
looked across the table and saw a light dancing in Morrison's eyes. Like a
hound unleashed he sprang among Sue's friends, tearing the rich to pieces,
calling for the onward advance of the masses, quoting odds and ends of
Shelley and Carlyle, peering earnestly up and down the table, and at the
end quite winning the hearts of the women by a defence of fallen women
that stirred the blood of even his friend and host.
Sam was amused and a trifle annoyed. The whole thing was, he knew, no more
than a piece of downright acting with just the touch of sincerity in it
that was characteristic of the man but that had no depth or real meaning.
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