Part 31 (2/2)
”Comrades,” he said, firmly, ”I shall do nothing of the kind. We are going to work out this experiment in human society without compromise.
We have successfully cut communication with the outside world. The crew of our s.h.i.+p are no longer allowed to land and only picked men unload her cargo. We are not going to play the baby act and dump these girls back on the old civilization which we have denounced. They may be wayward but they are our sisters.”
”They are not mine,” shouted one of the committee. ”The brazen creatures! And we do not propose to have our sons and daughters corrupted by a.s.sociation with them.”
”Then we must find some other solution than that of transportation,”
Norman insisted.
”Send them to the penal colony, then,” demanded the committee.
”And back in a circle we immediately travel to the crimes of civilization from which we fled. I prefer to send the boys who a.s.sociate with them. They are the real offenders.”
”I deny that a.s.sertion,” firmly declared the leader of the committee.
”My boy is one of the unfortunate victims of these brazen wretches.
Before we came to this island he never gave me a word of impudence.
From the night he met Blanche at our first ball he was beyond my advice or control. These girls are the enemies of society and this colony cannot exist if they remain within its life.”
”I refuse to believe it,” Norman cried, with scorn. ”It is your duty to reform these girls and restore them to mental and physical sanity, and as the leader of this colony I direct you to take up this divine work.”
”And I, for one,” spoke, for the first time, the silent gray-haired member of the committee, ”refuse to smirch my hands with the task.”
Norman, looked into the calm face of this white-haired, motherly looking woman with amazement.
”I can't understand you, comrade mother!” he exclaimed, with bitterness.
”That's because you're young, handsome, inexperienced, and, above all, because you are a man,” was the quick reply. ”I have spent a busy life since my own children grew out of the home nest in New York City in trying to help other people's children less fortunate than my own.
I've helped scores of boys and never had one to disappoint me yet.
I've tried to help scores of girls of the type we are discussing. I've always regretted it. I found them shallow, false, lazy, stupid, worthless. I have never looked at one of them except to blush that I am a woman. I speak from the saddest and most hopeless experiences of my life.”
Norman cut the argument short with a gesture of angry impatience.
”This discussion is a waste of breath. As long as I am in command of this colony no such insane act of injustice shall be committed against these girls.”
”Then it's time you gave place to a man of greater wisdom and less sentimental mush in his brain,” replied the calm, gray-haired woman.
”Thank you,” the young leader replied, with chilling politeness, ”you may be right--but in the meantime I accept the responsibility. Good day.”
He had made three enemies whose power he was soon to feel. As they pa.s.sed through the doorway Catherine greeted them politely and soothed their ruffled spirits with gentle words.
CHAPTER XXIV
SOME INTERROGATION POINTS
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