Read "Oil!" by Upton Sinclair online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
There was an interview to be had with Henrietta Ashleigh. It was not so painful as Bunny had feared, because she hid her grief under a cloak of dignity. "I am sorry, Arnold, but I am beginning to fear there is something in you that enjoys this crude notoriety. " Bunny tried to be humble and accept this rebuke, but he couldn't; there was something in him that was bored by Henrietta's ideas; and when you are bored, you can no longer keep up romantic imaginings about a girl.
And then the folks at home! First, Aunt Emma, horrified tearful, and completely muddled. Bunny had not got that prize after all! Aunt Emma had somehow got it fixed in her head that there had been a prize, and that Bunny might have got it if it had not been for the reds. This awful peril of Bolshevik agents, right in one's home! Aunt Emma had heard hair-raising stories from lecturers to her club-ladies, but had never dreamed that these emissaries of Satan might be seducing her darling nephew! "Watch out, auntie! " said the nephew. "You may be next!"