A moment later we were up-stairs. "I don't know why I am so cold."
My hands, not yet steady, were held out to the leaping flames.
"Usually I love a snow-storm, but to-day--"
"They tell me you rarely have such weather as we have had of late.
Personally I like it, but to many it means anything but pleasure.
Is this the chair you prefer?"
At my nod he pushed a low rocker closer to the fire and placed a
foot-stool properly. Drawing up the wing-chair he sat down and
looked around the room. As the light fell on him I noticed the
olive, almost swarthy, coloring of his skin, his deep-sunk eyes
with their changing expressions of gravity and humor, of tolerance
and intolerance, and I knew he was the sort of man one could talk
to on any subject and not be misunderstood. His hair was slightly
gray, and frequently his well-shaped hand would brush back a long
lock that fell across his temple. His clothes were not of a
clerical cut, and evidently had seen good service; and that he gave
little attention to personal details was evidenced by his cravat,
which was midway of his collar, and his collar of a loose,
ill-fitting kind.
About him was something intensely earnest, intensely eager and
alert, and, watching him, I realized he belonged to that little
group which through the ages has dared to differ with accepted
order; and for his daring he had suffered, as all must suffer who
feel as well as think.
"You don't mind," the smile on his face was whimsical, "if I take a
good draught of this, do you? It's been long since I've seen just
this sort of thing." His eyes were on a picture between two
windows. "Out of Denmark one rarely sees anything of Skovgaard's.
That Filipinno Lippi is excellent, also. At the Hermitage in St.
Petersburg I tried to get a copy like that"--he nodded at
Rembrandt's picture of himself--"but there was none to be had. Did
you get yours there?"
"Four years ago. I also got that photograph of Houdon's Voltaire
there."
He looked in the direction to which I pointed, and, getting up,
went over to first one picture and then another, and studied them
closely. A bit of bronze, a statuette or two, an altar-piece, a
chalice, a flagon, a paten, a censer, and an ikon held his
attention, one after the other, and again he turned to me.
"These are very interesting. Is it as one of the faithful you
collect?" A smile which strangely lighted his face swept over it.
"Oh no!" I shook my head. "The faithful would find me a most
disturbing person. I ask too many questions." My hand made
movement in the direction of the bookshelves around the four sides
of the room, on the tops of which were oddly assorted little
remembrances of days of travel. "A study of such things is a study
of religious expression at different periods and among different
peoples. They've always interested me."
"They interest me, also." Mr. Guard stood before the ikon, looked
long upon it before coming back to the fire and again sitting down.
For a moment he gazed into it as if forgetting where he was, then
he leaned back in his chair and turned to me.
"A collection of examples of ecclesiastical art, of religious
ideas embodied in objects used for purposes of worship, is
interesting--yes--but a collection of re-actions against what they
fail to represent would be more so, could they be collected."
"They have been--haven't they? In the lives of those who dare to
differ, to break from heritage and tradition, much has been
collected and transmitted. The effect of re-actions is what
counts, I suppose."
"Their inevitability is what people do not seem to understand."
Leaning forward, he again looked into the fire, his hands between
his knees. "The teachings of Christ having been twisted into a
system of theology, and the Church into an organization based on
dogma and doctrine, re-action is unescapable. However, we won't
get on that." Again he straightened. "Was it re-action that
brought you to Scarborough Square? I beg your pardon! I have no
right to ask. There was something you wished to ask me, I believe."
For a moment there was silence, broken only by the flames of the
fire, which spluttered and flared and made soft, whispering sounds,
while on the window-panes the snow, now turning into sleet, tapped
as if with tiny fingers, and my heart began to beat queerly.
I did not know how to ask him what I wanted to ask. There was much
he could tell me, much I wished to hear from a man's standpoint,
but how to make him understand was difficult. He had faced life
frankly, knew what was subterfuge, what sincere, and the
restrictions of custom and convention no longer handicapped him.
Between sympathy and sentimentality he had found the right
distinction, and his judgment and emotions had learned to work
together. My judgment and emotions were yet untrained.
"The girl down-stairs," I began. "You and Mrs. Mundy seem to know
her. If she belongs, as I imagine, to the world down there," my
hand made motion behind me, "Mrs. Mundy will think I can do
nothing. But cannot somebody do something? Must things always go
on the same way?"
"No. They will not always go on the same way. They will continue
so to go, however, until women--good women--understand they must
chiefly bring about the change. For centuries women have been
cowards, been ignorant of what they should know, been silent when
they should speak. They prefer to be--"
"White roses! But white roses do not necessarily live in
hot-houses." I pushed my chair farther from the fire. "That is one
of the reasons I am here. I want to know where women fail."
He looked up. "One does not often find a woman willing to know.
Behind the confusion of such terms as ignorance and innocence most
women continue their irresponsibility in certain directions. They
have accepted man's decree that certain evils, having always
existed, must always exist, and they have made little effort to
test the truth of the assertion. Lillie Pierce and the women of
her world are largely the product of the attitude of good women
toward them. To the sin of men good women shut their eyes, pretend
they do not know. They do not want to know."
"They not only do not want to know, themselves--that is, many of
them--but they would keep others from knowing. Perhaps it is
natural. So many things have happened to life in the past few
years that even clever, able women are still bewildered, still
uncertain what is right to do. Life can never be again what it
once was, and still, most of us are trying to live a new thing in
an old way. We have so long been purposely kept ignorant, so long
not permitted to have opinions that count, so long been told our
work is elsewhere, that cowardice and indifference, the fear of
inability to deal with new conditions, new obligations, new
responsibilities, still holds us back. I get impatient, indignant,
and then I realize--"
David Guard laughed. "That many are still in the child class?"
His head tossed back the long lock of hair that fell over his
forehead. "It is true, but certainly you do not think because I
see the backwardness, the blindness of some women, I do not see the
forwardness, the vision of others? Men have hardly guessed as yet
that it is chiefly due to women that the world is now asking
questions it has never asked before, beginning to look life in the
face where once it blinked at it. Because of what women have
suggested, urged, insisted on, and worked for, the social
conscience all over the earth has been aroused, social legislation
enacted, and social dreams stand chance of coming true. Certain
fields they have barely entered yet, however. It is easy to
understand why. When they realize what is required of them, they
will not hold back. But as yet, among the women you know, how many
give a thought to Lillie Pierce's world, to the causes and
conditions which make her and her kind?"
I shook my head. "I do not know. I've never heard her world
discussed."
"I suppose not. In this entire city there are few women who think
of girls like Lillie Pierce, or care to learn the truth concerning
them; care enough to see that though they went unto dogs, unto dogs
they need not return if they wish to get away. Most people, both
men and women, imagine such girls like their hideous life; that
they entered it from deliberate choice. Out of a hundred there may
be a dozen who so chose, but each of the others has her story, in
many instances a story that would shame all men because of man." He
glanced at the clock and got up quickly.
"I'm sorry, but I've got to go. I'd entirely forgotten an
engagement I'm compelled to fill. May I come again?" He held out
his hand. "I've heard about you, of course. I've wanted to know
you. There's much I'd like to talk to you about. When you leave
Scarborough Square and go back into your world, you can tell it
many things it should know. Some day it will understand." Abruptly
he turned and left the room.