“Well, what do you think?” said Cord, almost harshly.

Crystal rose, and, slipping her arm through his, leaned her head on the point of her father’s shoulder—­he was of a good height.  “I think,” she said, “you both talk beautifully.  I was so proud of you both—­saying such profound things so easily, and keeping your tempers so perfectly” (both brows smoothed out), “and it was all the more wonderful because, it seemed to me, you were both talking about things you knew nothing about.”

“What do you mean?” burst from both men with simultaneous astonishment.

“Ben, dear, father doesn’t know any radicals—­except you, and he’s only seen you twice.  Father dear, I don’t believe Ben ever talked five minutes with an able, successful conservative until he came here to-day.”

“You’re going to throw me over, Crystal?” said Ben, seeing her pose more clearly than he heard her words.

“No,” said Mr. Cord, bitterly, “she’s going to throw over an old man in favor of a young one.”

“You silly creatures,” said Crystal, with a smile that made the words affectionate and not rude.  “How can I ever throw either of you over?  I’m going to be Ben’s wife, and I am my father’s daughter.  I’m going to be those two things for all my life.”

Ben took her hand.  She puzzled him, but he adored her.  “But some day, Crystal,” he said, “you will be obliged to choose between our views—­mine or your father’s.  You must see that.”

“He’s right,” her father chimed in.  “This is not a temporary difference of opinion, you know, Crystal.  This cleavage is as old as mankind—­the radical against the conservative.  Time doesn’t reconcile them.”

Again the idea came to her:  “They do love to form gangs, the poor dears.”  Aloud she said:  “Yes, but the two types are rarely pure ones.  Why, father, you think Ben is a radical, but he’s the most hidebound conservative about some things—­much worse than you—­about free verse, for instance.  I read a long editorial about it not a month ago.  He really thinks anyone who defends it ought to be deported to some poetic limbo.  Ben, you think my father is conservative.  But there’s a great scandal in his mental life.  He’s a Baconian—­”

“He thinks Bacon wrote the plays!” exclaimed Ben, really shocked.

“Certainly I do,” answered Mr. Cord.  “Every man who uses his mind must think so.  There is nothing in favor of the Shakespeare theory, except tradition—­”

He would have talked for several hours upon the subject, but Crystal interrupted him by turning to Ben and continuing what she had meant to say: 

“When you said I should have to choose between your ideas, you meant between your political ideas.  Perhaps I shall, but I won’t make my choice, rest assured, until I have some reason for believing that each of you knows something—­honestly knows something about the other one’s point of view.”

“I don’t get it, exactly,” said Ben.