He said, "That’s not the point though. I can’t describe what I mean by a mass consciousness, exactly. A few people up top seem to know what it’s all about, like Vice-President Wallace and Sumner Welles and their opposite numbers in England. They have put into words what the masses just sort of feel. But it’s all vague, and the worst of it is that the people with most of the power have everything tied up in the status quo, so we’re back where we started again, with the big interests fighting for one kind of world and the masses fighting for something else".
Miriam had been staring at him with growing amazement. Now she asked, "How long has this been going on, for goodness’ sake?"
"How long has what been going on?"
Failing to think of any way of saying it which wouldn’t sound rude, she answered finally with a helpless gesture, "You’ve come such a long way from the bond house!"
"Thanks", said John. "When you’ve been in the Army for three years, you’re bound to start wondering why you’re there, some time or other".
"And do you know now?" inquired Miriam.
"Yes, or at least I’m beginning to get a general idea. I joined up more or less at the start in ’39 because my sort always does", he said matter-of-factly, as though he were discussing someone else. "Not because I was particularly anxious to pull up stakes and go out and die for my country, but just because I come from a certain type of background-a good school, university, do your job and don’t leave it to the other fellow-that sort of thing. Fine in 1900, but not enough to get you through this kind of war. I don’t like England much, it gives me claustrophobia, and I was stuck in a holding unit down on the south coast, homesick as the devil for a country big enough so that if you went walking at night you wouldn’t be running the risk of falling off the edge, and half the time I had nothing to do but play chess with the local vicar and think".
"So you thought", said Miriam.
"Shut up", he said good-humoredly, but he was embarrassed. He ran one hand over his fair hair, glanced at Miriam with that expression at the back of his blue eyes which gave him away every time he looked at her, and asked, "What shall we do now? Has anybody got any good ideas?"
"I want to go somewhere and dance", said Miriam.
On the way to the door she asked John how he liked Marc. "First rate", said John. "Your father must be crazy".
"Oh, no", said Miriam. "He just thinks we’re ighting the other kind of war-you know, the one for the status quo".
Later, as she was dancing with Marc, Miriam asked suddenly, "Don’t you think it would be a good idea if Eric got a place of her own to live?"
"Why?"
He was watching a couple who were dancing on the floor somewhere behind her and she said, "Eric thinks Charles is going to change his mind, but he isn’t. Not…" She stopped herself just in time, having been on the point of adding without thinking, "Not until it’s too late", and said instead, "Not until he’s just about worn her ragged".
"She doesn’t eat enough", said Marc noncommittally.
"Well, no", said Miriam, rather at a loss. Marc was too close for her to see him properly and find out whether he minded her going on or not. She decided to take a chance on his not minding and said, "He never leaves her alone, that’s the trouble. He doesn’t say anything about you directly, of course, but he does manage to get in a devil of a lot indirectly, and when he’s not doing that, he and Mother just sit and look blue, as though Erica’s the only thing they ever think about".
He surprised her by saying in the same expressionless tone, "Maybe she is". Still looking over Miriam’s shoulder, he added, "I didn’t know they still objected to me so much. I thought they were probably getting used to it by now".
She did not know how he could possibly have thought that when Erica must have told him that her parents were not making the slightest effort to get used to it-on the contrary!
The music stopped, then started again, and she said, "Tell me, Mr. Reiser, do you do everything as well as you dance?"
"Practically everything", said Marc, grinning. "By the way, I like your friend Major Gardiner".
"He likes you too". Like Erica, she found it difficult to imagine anyone with a grain of sense not liking Marc. It was not only that he was attractive and intelligent, with charm and good manners and a marvelous smile, but he had another quality, still more important. He was completely straight. After talking to him for even a short time, you knew that he would never lie nor take an advantage, and after a little longer, you also knew that he was incapable of consciously going out of his way to make an impression no matter who it was, and that he would be the same person in Court or at a social affair as he was with Erica, John, his own family or his Chinese laundryman.
"You have a Chinese laundryman, haven’t you?" asked Miriam.
"I think he has me. He always comes when I’m out and takes whatever he thinks needs washing. It doesn’t make any difference whether I think so or not, unless I take the trouble to hide it somewhere so he won’t find it". He sighed and said reminiscently, "My secretary used to be like that too. She even had my lunch sent up to the office whenever she could, so that she could make certain I had a properly balanced meal".
He went on talking about his secretary, whose name was Miss Carruthers, who was wonderful, and who had promised to come back as soon as he got out of the Army and started practicing law again.
Miriam was only half-listening, she was far more interested in Marc himself than in his former secretary.
Without realizing it, she had assumed that the chief problem in Erica’s apparently hopeless situation was her father… as though Marc were more or less in the position of someone hanging around the door waiting to be let in. Now that she had met him and he had turned out to be so subtly different from what she had expected, that bland assumption which she supposed was shared by her father, already struck her as fantastic.
"There’s no sense your starting to worrying about it", said Marc suddenly.
She had been following him automatically with her left hand twisting the upper of the two pips on his shoulder. She moved her hand nearer his collar and said, "I can’t help worrying. I care more about Eric than I do about anyone else. If she weren’t so damned decent, none of this would have happened to her. Mother used to be fond of saying that Erica had never given either her or Charles a moment’s worry-well, you’d think that since she’s never done anything they didn’t want her to do until now, they’d take her seriously and show some respect for her. But it doesn’t work that way at all-they’re so used to Erica never doing anything they don’t want, that they’re damn well not going to allow her to start at the age of twenty-eight".
"That’s a rather brutal way of putting it, isn’t it?"
"Isn’t that really what Charles means when he says this is the first time Erica has ever let them down, and that he’s not going to let her ruin her life if he can help it? Whose life is it, for God’s sake? Charles’ or Erica’s?"
He said nothing. He only smiled at her and looked away again.