I'm thinking about this
country principally. Too much chance for the individual. Trouble is, the
individual, like as not, don't know what's good for him and goes under,
like the man you've been telling me about."
"There's only one thing I apprehend in your socialistic state," said
Alexina, who always became frivolous when Kirkpatrick waxed serious, "and
that is universal dissolution from sheer ennui. Either that or we'll go on
eternally rowing about something else. Earth has never been free from war
since the beginning of history, and there is trouble of some sort going on
somewhere all the time--"
"All due to capitalism."
"Capitalism hasn't always existed."
"Human greed has, and the dominance of the strong over the weak."
"Exactly, and socialism if she ever gets her chance will dominate all she
knows how. Remember what you said just now about forcing the pampered women
to work when they were the underdog. But the point is that Nature made
Earthians a fighting breed. She must have had a good laugh when we named
another planet Mars."
"Well, we'll fight about worthier things."
"Don't be too sure. We fight about other things now. All the trouble in the
world isn't caused by money or the want of it. And what about the religious
wars--"
III
It was at this inopportune moment that they met Mortimer. If Alexina had
remembered that this was his homing hour she would have parted from her
visitor at the drawing-room door; but in truth she had dismissed Mortimer
from her mind.
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