Kedzie had one tiresome hip-length
shift and little else. As usual, poor Kedzie found that realization
was for her the parody of anticipation.
Kedzie's new art danced into her life a few new suitors, but they
came at a time when she was almost imbecile over Thomas Gilfoyle, the
advertising bard. He was the first intellectual man she had met--that
is, he was intellectual compared with any other of her men friends.
He could read and write something besides business literature.
In fact, he was a fellow of startling ideas. He called himself
a socialist. What the socialists would have called him it would be
hard to say; they are given to strong language.
Kedzie had known in Nimrim what church socials were, for they were
about the height of Nimrim excitement. But young Mr. Gilfoyle was not
a church socialist. He detested all creeds and all churches and said
things about them and about religion that at first made Kedzie look
up at the ceiling and dodge. But no brimstone ever broke through
the plaster and she grew used to his diatribes.
She had never met one of these familiar enough figures before, and
she was vaguely stirred by his chantings in behalf of humanity. He
adored the poor laborers, though he did not treat the office-boy well
and he was not gallant to the scrub-woman. But his theories were as
beautiful as music, and he intoned them with ringing oratory. Kedzie
did not know what he was talking about, any more than she knew what
Caruso was singing about when she turned him on in Mrs.
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