Part 2 (1/2)

”I really do not know. I thought you were going to congratulate me upon living the life I want to live.”

”I do. Until you get this thing out of your system--”

”What thing?” I, too, leaned forward. The tone of his voice made something in me flare. ”What thing?” I repeated.

Selwyn's shoulders shrugged slightly. He sat up, then leaned back, his hands in his pockets. ”Why discuss it? You've long wanted to do something of this sort. Until it was done you would never be content. What you want to do, I doubt if you know yourself. Are you slumming? Uplifting?”

”I am not. I'm neither a slummer nor an uplifter. A slummer helps.

I'm just looking on.” I threw the cus.h.i.+on behind me to the other end of the sofa. ”I thought it might be interesting to see for myself some of the causes which produce conditions. I've read a good deal, but one doesn't exactly sense things by reading. I want to see.”

”And after you see?” Selwyn made an impatient movement with his hand. ”A thousand years from now humanity may get results from scientific management in social organization, but most of your present-day methods are about as practical as trying to empty the ocean with a teaspoon or to pick a posy out of swamp gra.s.s.”

”What do you know of present-day methods?”

”Very little. Beating the air doesn't interest me. Most people seem to forget the processes of nature; seem to imagine that certain things can be brought to pa.s.s quickly which can only be accomplished slowly. From the first struggle of the human race to stand upright, to articulate, to find food, to strike fire, to paddle in water, to wear covering, to forage, explore-- What is the matter?”

”Nothing.” I leaned back in the corner of the sofa, my hands, palms upward, in my lap, my eyes on them that he might not see their smiling. ”I was just wondering what that had to do with certain present-day conditions, certain injustices and inequalities, certain--”

”It explains them to some extent. From the earliest days of dawning thought, from the first efforts at self-expression, humanity has grouped itself not only into families, tribes, communities, nations, or what you will, but in each of these divisions there have ever been subdivisions. Ignorance and knowledge, strength and weakness, power and incapacity, find their level, rise or fall according to their proper place. If you have any little dreams of making all human beings after one pattern--”

”I haven't. It would be as uninteresting as impossible. But it is queer--”

”What is queer?” Selwyn stooped forward and broke a lump of coal from which sprang blazing reds and curling blues of flame. ”Why did you stop?”

”I was thinking it was queer you should know so much of the history of the human race and so little of its life to-day. As a shrugger you stand off.”

”For the love of Heaven don't let's get on that!”

With swift movement he took a cigar from one pocket, a match-case from another. ”May I smoke?” he asked, irritably, and as I nodded he struck a match and held it to the cigar in his mouth, then threw it in the fire. Presently he looked at me.

”Why didn't you tell me you were coming here--for a while?”

”It would have meant more argument. You would not have approved.”

”I most a.s.suredly would not. But that would have made no difference.

My disapproval would not have prevented.”

”No. I should have come, of course. But I was tired, and useless discussion does no good. We would have said again the same old things we've said so often, and I didn't want to say them or hear them. One of the reasons why I came down here was to talk with people who weren't born with made-up minds, and who don't have high walls around their homes.”

”There are times when I would like to put them around you! If you were mine I'd do it.”

”No, you wouldn't. You know perfectly well what I would do with walls. That is the kind you think should be around a woman. But we won't get on that, either. Were you ever in Scarborough Square before?”

Selwyn nodded and looked, not at me, but at the spirals of smoke from his cigar. ”My grandfather used to live on the opposite side of the Square, and as a kid I was brought occasionally to see him. I barely remember him. He died thirty years ago.”

”It's difficult to imagine this was once the fas.h.i.+onable part of the city, and that gorgeous parties and b.a.l.l.s--” I sat upright and laughed. ”I went to a party last night. It was a wonderful party.”

”You did what?”

Selwyn's cigar was held suspended on its way to his lips. ”Whose party? Where was it?”