“To what end?” she asked doubtfully.

“Does it matter?  Isn’t the thinking, in itself, end enough?”

“Brutish thinking if it’s represented in your screaming headlines.”

“Predigested news.  I want to preserve all their brain-power for my editorial page.  And, oh, how easy I make it for them!  Thoughts of one syllable.”

“And you use your power over their minds to incite them to discontent.”

“Certainly.”

“But that’s dreadful, Ban!  To stir up bitterness and rancor among people.”

“Don’t you be misled by cant, Miss Camilla,” adjured Banneker.  “The contented who have everything to make them content have put a stigma on discontent.  They’d have us think it a crime.  It isn’t.  It’s a virtue.”

“Ban!  A virtue?”

“Well; isn’t it?  Call it by the other name, ambition.  What then?”

Miss Van Arsdale pondered with troubled eyes.  “I see what you mean,” she confessed.  “But the discontent that arises within one’s self is one thing; the ‘divine discontent.’  It’s quite another to foment it for your own purposes in the souls of others.”

“That depends upon the purpose.  If the purpose is to help the others, through making their discontent effective to something better, isn’t it justified?”

“But isn’t there always the danger of making a profession of discontent?”

“That’s a shrewd hit,” confessed Banneker.  “I’ve suspected that Marrineal means to capitalize it eventually, though I don’t know just how.  He’s a secret sort of animal, Marrineal.”

“But he gives you a free hand?” she asked.

“He has to,” said Banneker simply.

Camilla Van Arsdale sighed.  “It’s success, Ban.  Isn’t it?”

“Yes.  It’s success.  In its kind.”

“Is it happiness?”

“Yes.  Also in its kind.”

“The real kind?  The best kind?”

“It’s satisfaction.  I’m doing what I want to do.”

She sighed.  “I’d hoped for something more.”

He shook his head.  “One can’t have everything.”

“Why not?” she demanded almost fiercely.  “You ought to have.  You’re made for it.”  After a pause she added:  “Then it isn’t Betty Raleigh.  I’d hoped it was.  I’ve been watching her.  There’s character there, Ban, as well as charm.”

“She has other interests.  No; it isn’t Betty.”

“Ban, there are times when I could hate her,” broke out Miss Van Arsdale.

“Who?  Betty?”

“You know whom well enough.”

“I stand corrected in grammar as well as fact,” he said lightly.

“Have you seen her?”

“Yes.  I see her occasionally.  Not often.”

“Does she come here?”

“She has been.”

“And her husband?”

“No.”

“Ban, aren’t you ever going to get over it?”

He looked at her silently.

“No; you won’t.  There are a few of us like that.  God help us!” said Camilla Van Arsdale.