Page:Peter Whiffle (1922).djvu/131

 pointing the dread moral, accenting the horror. The lights go out. Darkness. In the distance, a band is heard playing The Star Spangled Banner. Finis.

Peter's excitement became so great that he almost shrieked; he waved his arms and he half rose out of his chair. George Sand, too, found it expedient to retreat under the bed. The kittens, tumbling mewing out of their baskets, their little tails, like Christmas trees, straight in the air, followed her, and soon were pushing their paws valiantly against her belly and drinking greedily from her dugs.

It's wonderful, I said when Peter, at last, was silent. Then, as it seemed, rather inconsequentially, Do you know Edith Dale?

Who is Edith Dale?

Well, she's a woman, but a new kind of woman, or else the oldest kind; I'm not sure which. I'm going to take you there. Bill Haywood goes there. So does Doris Keane. Everybody goes there. Everything is all mixed up. Everybody talks his own kind of talk and Edith, inscrutable Edith, sits back and listens. You can listen too.

Is she writing a book?

No, she never does anything like that. She spends her energy in living, in watching other people live, in watching them make their silly mistakes, in helping them make their silly mistakes. She is a dynamo. She will give you a good deal. At least,