"I am afraid you do not greatly admire this Miss Spencer?"
"Oh, but I do; truly I do. You must not think me ungrateful. No one
has ever helped me more, and beneath this mask of artificiality she is
really a noble-hearted woman. I do not understand the necessity for
people to lead false lives. Is it this way in all society--Eastern
society, I mean? Do men and women there continually scheme and flirt,
smile and stab, forever assuming parts like so many play-actors?"
"It is far too common," he admitted, touched by her naive questioning.
"What is known as fashionable social life has become an almost pitiful
sham, and you can scarcely conceive the relief it is to meet with one
utterly uncontaminated by its miserable deceits, its shallow
make-believes. It is no wonder you shock the nerves of such people;
the deed is easily accomplished."
"But I do not mean to." And she looked at him gravely, striving to
make him comprehend. "I try so hard to be--be commonplace, and--and
satisfied. Only there is so much that seems silly, useless, pitifully
contemptible that I lose all patience. Perhaps I need proper training
in what Miss Spencer calls refinement; but why should I pretend to like
what I don't like, and to believe what I don't believe? Cannot one act
a lie as well as speak one? And is it no longer right to search after
the truth?"
"I have always felt it was our duty to discover the truth wherever
possible," he said, thoughtfully; "yet, I confess, the search is not
fashionable, nor the earnest seeker popular."
A little trill of laughter flowed from between her parted lips, but the
sound was not altogether merry.
"Most certainly I am not. They all scold me, and repeat with manifest
horror the terrible things I say, being unconscious that they are evil.
Why should I suspect thoughts that come to me naturally? I want to
know, to understand. I grope about in the dark. It seems to me
sometimes that this whole world is a mystery. I go to Mr. Wynkoop with
my questions, and they only seem to shock him. Why should they? God
must have put all these doubts and wonderings into my mind, and there
must be an answer for them somewhere. Mr. Wynkoop is a good man, I
truly respect him. I want to please him, and I admire his intellectual
attainments; but how can he accept so much on faith, and be content?
Do you really suppose he is content? Don't you think he ever questions
as I do? or has he actually succeeded in smothering every doubt? He
cannot answer what I ask him; he cannot make things clear. He just
pulls up a few, cheap, homely weeds,--useless common things,--when I
beg for flowers; he hands them to me, and bids me seek greater faith
through prayer. I know I am a perfect heathen,--Miss Spencer says I
am,--but do you think it is so awful for me to want to know these
things?"