A Poor Wise Man
he would call the monied aristocracy of America, and he has the most fearful ideas about us."

"An anarchist, then?" asked Mademoiselle, extremely comforted.

"Not at all. He says he belongs to the plain people. The people in between. He is rather oratorical about them. He calls them the backbone of the country."

Mademoiselle relaxed. She had been too long in old Anthony's house to consider very seriously the plain people. Her world, like Anthony Cardew's, consisted of the financial aristocracy, which invested money in industries and drew out rich returns, while providing employment for the many; and of the employees of the magnates, who had recently shown strong tendencies toward upsetting the peace of the land, and had given old Anthony one or two attacks of irritability when it was better to go up a rear staircase if he were coming down the main one.

"Wait a moment," said Lily, suddenly. "I have a picture of him somewhere."

She disappeared, and Mademoiselle heard her rummaging through the drawers of her dressing table. She came back with a small photograph in her hand.

It showed a young man, in a large apron over a Red Cross uniform, bending over a low field range with a long-handled fork in his hand.

"Frying doughnuts," Lily explained. "I was in this hut at first, and I mixed them and cut them, and he fried them. We made thousands of them. We used to talk about opening a shop somewhere, Cardew and Cameron. He said my name would be fine for business. He'd fry them in the window, and I'd sell them. And a coffee machine--coffee and doughnuts, you know."

"Not--seriously?"

At the expression on Mademoiselle's face Lily laughed joyously.

"Why not?" she demanded. "And you could be the cashier, like the ones in France, and sit behind a high desk and count money all day. I'd rather do that than come out," she added.

"You are going to be a good girl, Lily, aren't you?"

"If that means letting grandfather use me for a doormat, I don't know."

"Lily!"

"He's old, and I intend to be careful. But he doesn't own me, body and soul. And it may be hard to make him understand that."


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