"Of course it's plain talk, because it's a perfectly plain situation.
It isn't a new thing to me to see people who've been going without food.
At the Settlement--"
I still kept up the effort to smile. "If I'd been going without food
there are a dozen places--"
"Where they'd give you a meal, after they'd satisfied themselves that
you hadn't been drinking. I know all about that. But would you go?
Would you rather drop dead of starvation first? And what good would it
do you in the end, just one meal, or two meals, when everything else is
lacking? It's the whole thing--"
"But how would you tackle that, the whole thing? It seems to me that if
I can't do it myself no one else--"
"I'll tell you as straightforwardly as you ask the question. I should
give you, lend you, as much money as you wanted, so that you should have
time to reorganize your life."
"And suppose I couldn't, that I spent your money and was just where I
was before?"
"Then my conscience would be clear."
"But your conscience must be clear in any case."
"It isn't. When all you ask for is to help--"
"But you can help other people--who need it more."
"Oh, don't keep that up. I _know_ what you need. I've told you already
I've seen starvation before. Don't be offended! And when it's you,
some one we've all known, and liked-- Boyd liked you from the first."
"But not from the last."
"He thinks you're--you're strange, naturally. We all think so. I think
so. But that doesn't make any difference when you don't get enough to
eat."
"And suppose I turned out to be only an adventurer?"
She shrugged her shoulders, after a habit she had. "That would be your
responsibility. Don't you see? I'm not thinking so much about you as I
am about myself. It's nothing to me what you are, not any more than
what Lydia is, or a dozen others I could name to you. I think it highly
probable that Lydia Blair will take the road we call going to the bad--"
"Oh, surely not!"
This invitation to digression she also swept aside. "She won't do it
with her eyes shut, never fear! She'll know all about it, and take her
own way because it's hers. Don't pity her. If I were half so free--"
"Well?"
"Well, for one thing, you'd have another chance. If you didn't use it
that would be your own affair."
"Why do you speak of another chance? Do you think--?"
"Oh, don't ask me what I think. I take it for granted that--"
"Yes? Please tell me. What is it that you take for granted?"
"What good would it do for me to tell you?"
"It would do the good that I should know."
"Well, then, I take it for granted, since you insist, that you've done
something, somewhere--"
"And still you'd lend me as much money as I asked for?"
"What difference does it make to me? I want you to have another chance.
I shouldn't want it if you didn't need it; and you wouldn't need it
unless there was something wrong with you. There! Is that plain enough?
But because there is something wrong with you I want to come in and help
you put it right. I don't care who you are or what you've done, so long
as those are the facts."
"But I'm obliged to care, don't you see? If I were to take advantage of
your generosity--"
"Tell me truthfully now. Would you do it if I were a man, a friend, who
insisted on helping you to start again?"