let his chin sink to rest in his palm, using an elbow for a prop, in the attitude of a philosophic student at a lecture that promises to be endless. This disengaged and contemplative position he retained throughout the meeting; his chin gradually sank deeper into his palm, till only the broad short nose and musing round eyes were visible. The most popular of the realist faction, he was the recipient of many bipartisan winks and nods, as the other council members came rapidly through the door, more prompt in attendance than in the city and peculiarly more self-conscious. Curt greetings were exchanged; Desmond cocked a jewel-like green eye at the coffee-table and registered the absence of the whisky bottle; he and Editor Haines passed a wordless message of comment; the secretary opened his notebook; Eleanor Macdermott cleared her throat.
“You have the floor,” she declared drily, convening the meeting and gesturing to Taub to begin. The group turned toward him expectantly, shifting theircamp chairs. A feeling that the present meeting would serve as a test of strength had suddenly become a certainty to nearly everyone in the room. How, nobody could imagine, so that a little stir of curiosity quickened, not altogether displeasurably, the insistent sense of foreboding that the inclusion of the realists in the experiment had attached to every action and gesture. Conscious of this suspense, and prolonging it for tactical reasons, Taub sent a shrewd, probing look around the room, appeared to estimate for a moment, nodded curtly to himself, took a draught of his cigarette, exhaled slowly and luxuriously, opened his mouth to speak, and suddenly found himself wordless. In all his arrangements and calculations, he had overlooked only one thing: what he wished, concretely, to propose. The expulsion of Joe Lockman had figured only hazily in his mind as the possible outcome of his intrigues, and he had imagined proceeding toward this blur by a series of easy stages. Certain harsh scenes from later in the evening, it is true, his own clenched fist and protruding thumb raised on high to demolish the unavailing argument of an opponent, Macdermott’s weak, angry stammer, Katy’s frightened eyes, had appeared to him with a vivid distinctness that enslaved his powers of attention and left him no freedom of thought. Awaking abruptly from their spell, seeing all these faces directed toward him clad in Sunday democratic expressions, he did not know how to begin: his habitual fear of showing his hand too early made him utterly incapable of an initiative. After a moment ofbaffled reflection, in which his intelligence struggled to give quasi-judicial form to the mass of spiteful feelings, which had suddenly ceased to seethe in him, he contrived to find a way out. “I’ll pass it to Harold,” he announced, in a bland and matter-of-fact voice that took no notice of the general amazement or of Harold’s irrepressible start. He leaned abruptly back, audience-fashion in his chair, his arm flung loosely to one side, waiting, as it appeared, to hear Harold’s thoughts on this subject, quite as if they were not as familiar to him as his own. Sidney, rapidly running over the agenda as he understood it, found himself also at a loss. He did not know what Taub wanted him to say, and was obliged, finally, to lean over to consult him in a whisper. Taub frowned at his suggestion and emphatically shook his head. Harold shrugged and threw up his hands despairingly. Taub tapped him and whispered; Sidney concurred, doubtfully, and after a last-minute flurry of indecision, got up and began to speak.
“I assume,” he commenced jerkily, with an aborted ‘easiness’ of delivery, “that we’re all friends here. What I’m going to say reflects no criticism on anybody present. We all make mistakes …” A few perfunctory nods acknowledged this preamble; he went on in a more businesslike tone. “Suppose we start with last night …” And he began to
“You have the floor,” she declared drily, convening the meeting and gesturing to Taub to begin. The group turned toward him expectantly, shifting theircamp chairs. A feeling that the present meeting would serve as a test of strength had suddenly become a certainty to nearly everyone in the room. How, nobody could imagine, so that a little stir of curiosity quickened, not altogether displeasurably, the insistent sense of foreboding that the inclusion of the realists in the experiment had attached to every action and gesture. Conscious of this suspense, and prolonging it for tactical reasons, Taub sent a shrewd, probing look around the room, appeared to estimate for a moment, nodded curtly to himself, took a draught of his cigarette, exhaled slowly and luxuriously, opened his mouth to speak, and suddenly found himself wordless. In all his arrangements and calculations, he had overlooked only one thing: what he wished, concretely, to propose. The expulsion of Joe Lockman had figured only hazily in his mind as the possible outcome of his intrigues, and he had imagined proceeding toward this blur by a series of easy stages. Certain harsh scenes from later in the evening, it is true, his own clenched fist and protruding thumb raised on high to demolish the unavailing argument of an opponent, Macdermott’s weak, angry stammer, Katy’s frightened eyes, had appeared to him with a vivid distinctness that enslaved his powers of attention and left him no freedom of thought. Awaking abruptly from their spell, seeing all these faces directed toward him clad in Sunday democratic expressions, he did not know how to begin: his habitual fear of showing his hand too early made him utterly incapable of an initiative. After a moment ofbaffled reflection, in which his intelligence struggled to give quasi-judicial form to the mass of spiteful feelings, which had suddenly ceased to seethe in him, he contrived to find a way out. “I’ll pass it to Harold,” he announced, in a bland and matter-of-fact voice that took no notice of the general amazement or of Harold’s irrepressible start. He leaned abruptly back, audience-fashion in his chair, his arm flung loosely to one side, waiting, as it appeared, to hear Harold’s thoughts on this subject, quite as if they were not as familiar to him as his own. Sidney, rapidly running over the agenda as he understood it, found himself also at a loss. He did not know what Taub wanted him to say, and was obliged, finally, to lean over to consult him in a whisper. Taub frowned at his suggestion and emphatically shook his head. Harold shrugged and threw up his hands despairingly. Taub tapped him and whispered; Sidney concurred, doubtfully, and after a last-minute flurry of indecision, got up and began to speak.
“I assume,” he commenced jerkily, with an aborted ‘easiness’ of delivery, “that we’re all friends here. What I’m going to say reflects no criticism on anybody present. We all make mistakes …” A few perfunctory nods acknowledged this preamble; he went on in a more businesslike tone. “Suppose we start with last night …” And he began to
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