"What do _you_ think?" she asked, at last. "I suppose you have an
opinion."
"On what point?"
"The point she brought up ... as to her knowing him ... so well."
"I've no opinion about that. I know she knows him ... very well indeed.
At least, I take it for granted."
"What makes you do that?"
"Oh, just having seen them together."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Why should I have done that? Men don't--don't give each other away."
"Then in his knowing her there was something to--to give away."
"Evidently."
"Then what about your knowing her yourself?"
"That was different."
"Different? How?"
Since she was pressing the question I decided not to spare her.
"I didn't wait for her at a street corner as a form of introduction."
Expecting the question, "And did he?" I was surprised that she should
make it. "And would it be discreet to inquire what your form of
introduction was?"
"I was presented to her in all propriety by a blind boy named
Drinkwater, you heard her mention him, who was my cabin-mate on the
_Auvergne_. He and Miss Blair and I, with some other people, happened
to sit at the same table."
"And have you no interest in her besides that?"
"Yes: she's been a very good friend to me. I haven't seen her for two
years and more; but that was my fault."
"So I understand."
"What do you mean by that?'
"That if you had no interest in her she had an interest in you, strong
enough to--to impel her to make my acquaintance."
"With some good end in view, presumably."
"With the end in view of giving me the information that--that she knew
Dick."
"And do you call that taking an interest in me?"
"What do you think yourself?"
Once more I declined to give my impressions. Where Stroud was concerned
I had nothing to say. Now that Vio knew something of the truth
concerning him I wished not to influence her in any way. The matter
seemed oddly far away from me. The tie between Vio and myself being
broken in fact, as it soon would be in law, I preferred to leave the
subject of my successor where it was.
"Why do you say," she began after a brief pause, "that this is not a
life for you any more?"
"Because it isn't."
"But why isn't it?"
"For one reason, because I don't like it."
"Oh!" She was not expecting this reply and it displeased her. "What's
the matter with it?"
"For me, everything. But it's nothing that you would understand."
"I suppose I could understand if you explained to me."
"No, you couldn't. Or, rather, I couldn't. The language isn't coined
that would give me the words to tell you. It's not the facts of the
life I dislike; it's the spirit of it."
"Is there anything wrong with the spirit of it?"
"I'm not saying so. I merely dislike it for myself. For me it's not a
real life any more. I belong to--to simpler people with less complex
ideas."
"Less complex ideas about what?'
"About honor for one thing." In my goings and comings round the room I
paused in front of her. "Among my friends, my real friends, you can be
a coward or a deserter, just as you could be a murderer or a thief, and
no one would pass judgment upon you."
"And is that ... a virtue?"
"I don't know anything about its being a virtue; but it is a
consolation."
As I stood looking down on her she said, softly:
"Have I passed judgment upon you?"
"You've been a brick, Vio: you've been a heroine. The only difference I
should note between you and the people to whom I'm going back is that
you've suppressed your condemnation, and they didn't feel it."
"Did they ... _know_?"
"I can't tell you what they knew, for the reason that it wouldn't have
mattered. They knew there was something wrong with me, that I was
hiding something, that I was probably an outcast of good family; but
they gave me a great, big affection to live in, and thought no more
about it. You've given me--"
There was an extraordinarily brilliant flash of her dark eyes as she
lifted them to mine.
"What?" she interjected. "Have you any idea of what I've given you?"
"You've given me," I repeated, "the great, big affection to live in, but
with something in it that poisoned the air. I'm grateful to you, Vio,
more grateful than I can begin to tell you, especially as I know now
what you've been thinking all the time; but you can easily understand
that I prefer not to live in an atmosphere laden with--"
"If we purified that, the atmosphere? What then?"
"It still wouldn't be everything. When I say I don't like the life, it
isn't just because it's cast me out; it's because for me--mind you, I'm
not speaking of any one else--it's become vapid and--and foolish,
and--and a throwing away of time."
"And what do you find among the people you--you call your friends that's
more worth while?"
"That's what it's hard to tell you. I find the simple and elemental,
something basic and fundamental that the new crisis in existence is
telling us to discover and--and rectify. You remember what I said a
month or more ago to Stroud, that our building was collapsing?"
"Yes; and I hoped you were, as people say, talking through your hat."
"Well, I wasn't. The building is coming down, right to the foundations.
Only the foundations will remain."
"They're awfully crude foundations, aren't they?"
"Exactly. That's just where the trouble is. The bases of our life are
ugly and unclean, and so we've turned away and refused to look at them.
I'm going back, Vio, to see what I can do to make them less ugly, less
unclean, and more secure to build on. How _can_ we erect a society on
foundations that already have the element of decay in them before we've
added the first layer of our superstructure?"
Rising, she went to a window, leaning against it as if tired, and
looking out into the darkness.
"But what can you do, all by yourself?"
"Very little; but a little is something. It isn't altogether the
success or the failure that I'm thinking about; it's the principle."
"Oh, if you're going to live by principles--"
"We've got to live by something. When the world is coming down about
our heads."
"If it's doing that, one man can't hold it up."
"No; but a good many men may. I'm not the only one who's trying."
"I never heard of any one trying it like that ... by going back to the
foundational, as you call it."
"Oh, I think you have. The Man who more than any other has helped the
human race did just that thing. You're strict about going to church on
Sunday."
She was slightly shocked. "I presume you're not going to try to be like
Him."
"Perhaps not. I may not aim so high. I'm only pointing out the fact
that going back to the foundational and beginning there again was His
method. Others have followed it, a good many. All the work connected
with what we call Settlements--"
"I never could bear them."
"Possibly; but that isn't the point. I'm only saying that in their way
settlement workers have been feeling out the special weakness of our
civilization, and doing their best to meet it. I suppose our
politicians and clergymen and economists have been doing the same. The
trouble with them is that they so generally nip the symptom while
leaving the root of the disease that they don't accomplish much."
"Did you accomplish much yourself when you were--?"
"I didn't try. I didn't see what I was there for. It's only since
coming back here that I've begun to understand why I was led the way I
was."
Half turning round, she said over her shoulder:
"Do you call that being led?"