Thither every weekday morning Miss Barfoot and Rhoda repaired; they arrived at nine o'clock, and with an hour's interval work went on until five.
Entering by the private door of a picture-cleaner's shop, they ascended to the second story, where two rooms had been furnished like comfortable offices; two smaller on the floor above served for dressing-rooms. In one of the offices, typewriting and occasionally other kinds of work that demanded intelligence were carried on by three or four young women regularly employed. To superintend this department was Miss Nunn's chief duty, together with business correspondence under the principal's direction. In the second room Miss Barfoot instructed her pupils, never more than three being with her at a time. A bookcase full of works on the Woman Question and allied topics served as a circulating library; volumes were lent without charge to the members of this little society. Once a month Miss Barfoot or Miss Nunn, by turns, gave a brief address on some set subject; the hour was four o'clock, and about a dozen hearers generally assembled. Both worked very hard. Miss Barfoot did not look upon her enterprise as a source of pecuniary profit, but she had made the establishment more than self-supporting. Her pupils increased in number, and the working department promised occupation for a larger staff than was at present engaged. The young women in general answered their friend's expectations, but of course there were disappointing instances. One of these had caused Miss Barfoot special distress. A young girl whom she had released from a life of much hardship, and who, after a couple of months' trial, bade fair to develop noteworthy ability, of a sudden disappeared. She was without relatives in London, and Miss Barfoot's endeavours to find her proved for several weeks very futile. Then came news of her; she was living as the mistress of a married man. Every effort was made to bring her back, but the girl resisted; presently she again passed out of sight, and now more than a year had elapsed since Miss Barfoot's last interview with her.
This Monday morning, among letters delivered at the house, was one from the strayed girl. Miss Barfoot read it in private, and throughout the day remained unusually grave. At five o'clock, when staff and pupils had all departed, she sat for a while in meditation, then spoke to Rhoda, who was glancing over a book by the window.
'Here's a letter I should like you to read.'
'Something that has been troubling you since morning, isn't it?'
'Yes.'
Rhoda took the sheet and quickly ran through its contents. Her face hardened, and she threw down the letter with a smile of contempt.
'What do you advise?' asked the elder woman, closely observing her.
'An answer in two lineswith a cheque enclosed, if you see fit.'
'Does that really meet the case?'
'More than meets it, I should say.'
Miss Barfoot pondered.
'I am doubtful. That is a letter of despair, and I can't close my ears to it.'
'You had an affection for the girl. Help her, by all means, if you feel compelled to. But you would hardly dream of taking her back again?'
'That's the point. Why shouldn't I?'
'For one thing,' replied Rhoda, looking coldly down upon her friend, 'you will never do any good with her. For another, she isn't a suitable companion for the girls she would meet here.'
'I can't be sure of either objection. She acted with deplorable rashness, with infatuation, but I never discovered any sign of evil in her. Did you?'
'Evil? Well, what does the word mean? I am not a Puritan, and I don't judge her as the ordinary woman would. But I think she has put herself altogether beyond our sympathy. She was twenty-two years oldno childand she acted with her eyes open. No deceit was practised with her. She knew the man had a wife, and she was base enough to accept a share of his attentions. Do you advocate polygamy? That is an intelligible position, I admit. It is one way of meeting the social difficulty. But not mine.'
'My dear Rhoda, don't enrage yourself.'
'I will try not to.'
'But I can't see the temptation to do so. Come and sit down, and talk quietly. No, I have no fondness for polygamy. I find it very hard to understand how she could act as she did. But a mistake, however wretched, mustn't condemn a woman for life. That's the way of the world, and decidedly it mustn't be ours.'
'On this point I practically agree with the world.'
'I see you do, and it astonishes me. You are going through curious changes, in several respects. A year ago you didn't speak of her like this.'
'Partly because I didn't know you well enough to speak my mind. Partly yes, I have changed a good deal, no doubt. But I should never have proposed to take her by the hand and let bygones be bygones. That is an amiable impulse, but anti-social.'
'A favourite word on your lips just now, Rhoda. Why is it anti-social?'
'Because one of the supreme social needs of our day is the education of women in self-respect and self-restraint. There are plenty of peoplemen chiefly, but a few women also of a certain temperamentwho cry for a reckless individualism in these matters. They would tell you that she behaved laudably, that she was living out herselfand things of that kind. But I didn't think you shared such views.'
'I don't, altogether. "The education of women in self-respect." Very well. Here is a poor woman whose self-respect has given way under grievous temptation. Circumstances have taught her that she made a wild mistake. The man gives her up, and bids her live as she can; she is induced to beggary. Now, in that position a girl is tempted to sink still further. The letter of two lines and an enclosed cheque would as likely as not plunge her into depths from which she could never be rescued. It would assure her that there was no hope. On the other hand, we have it in our power to attempt that very education of which you speak. She has brains, and doesn't belong to the vulgar. It seems to me that you are moved by illogical impulsesand certainly anything but kind ones.'
Rhoda only grew more stubborn.
'You say she yielded to a grievous temptation. What temptation? Will it bear putting into words?'
'Oh yes, I think it will,' answered Miss Barfoot, with her gentlest smile. 'She fell in love with the man.'
'Fell in love!' Concentration of scorn was in this echo. 'Oh, for what isn't that phrase responsible!'
'Rhoda, let me ask you a question on which I have never ventured. Do you know what it is to be in love?'
Miss Nunn's strong features were moved as if by a suppressed laugh; the colour of her cheeks grew very slightly warm.
'I am a normal human being,' she answered, with an impatient gesture. 'I understand perfectly well what the phrase signifies.'
'That is no answer, my dear. Have you ever been in love with any man?'
'Yes. When I was fifteen.'
'And not since,' rejoined the other, shaking her head and smiling. 'No, not since?'
'Thank Heaven, no!'
'Then you are not very well able to judge this case. I, on the other hand, can judge it with the very largest understanding. Don't smile so witheringly, Rhoda. I shall neglect your advice for once.'
'You will bring this girl back, and continue teaching her as before?'
'We have no one here that knows her, and with prudence she need never be talked about by those of our friends who did.'
'Oh, weakweakweak!'
'For once I must act independently.'
'Yes, and at a stroke change the whole character of your work. You never proposed keeping a reformatory. Your aim is to help chosen girls, who promise to be of some use in the world. This Miss Royston represents the profitless averageno, she is below the average. Are you so blind as to imagine that any good will ever come of such a person? If you wish to save her from the streets, do so by all means. But to put her among your chosen pupils is to threaten your whole undertaking. Let it once become knownand it would become knownthat a girl of that character came here, and your usefulness is at an end. In a year's time you will have to choose between giving up the school altogether and making it a refuge for outcasts.'
Miss Barfoot was silent. She tapped with her fingers on the table.
'Personal feeling is misleading you,' Rhoda pursued. 'Miss Royston had a certain cleverness, I grant; but do you think I didn't know that she would never become what you hoped? All her spare time was given to novel-reading. If every novelist could be strangled and thrown into the sea we should have some chance of reforming women. The girl's nature was corrupted with sentimentality, like that of all but every woman who is intelligent enough to read what is called the best fiction, but not intelligent enough to understand its vice. Lovelovelove; a sickening sameness of vulgarity. What is more vulgar than the ideal of novelists? They won't represent the actual world; it would be too dull for their readers. In real life, how many men and women fall in love? Not one in every ten thousand, I am convinced. Not one married pair in ten thousand have felt for each other as two or three couples do in every novel. There is the sexual instinct, of course, but that is quite a different thing; the novelists daren't talk about that. The paltry creatures daren't tell the one truth that would be profitable. The result is that women imagine themselves noble and glorious when they are most near the animals. This Miss Roystonwhen she rushed off to perdition, ten to one she had in mind some idiot heroine of a book. Oh, I tell you that you are losing sight of your first duty. There are people enough to act the good Samaritan; you have quite another task in life. It is your work to train and encourage girls in a path as far as possible from that of the husband-hunter. Let them marry later, if they must; but at all events you will have cleared their views on the subject of marriage, and put them in a position to judge the man who offers himself. You will have taught them that marriage is an alliance of intellectsnot a means of support, or something more ignoble still. But to do this with effect you must show yourself relentless to female imbecility. If a girl gets to know that you have received back such a person as Miss Royston she will be corrupted by your spirit of charitycorrupted, at all events, for our purposes. The endeavour to give women a new soul is so difficult that we can't be cumbered by side-tasks, such as fishing foolish people out of the mud they have walked into. Charity for human weakness is all very well in its place, but it is precisely one of the virtues that you must not teach. You have to set an example of the sterner qualitiesto discourage anything that resembles sentimentalism. And think if you illustrate in your own behaviour a sympathy for the very vice of character we are trying our hardest to extirpate!'
'This is a terrible harangue,' said Miss Barfoot, when the passionate voice had been silent for a few ticks of the clock. 'I quite enter into your point of view, but I think you go beyond practical zeal. However, I will help the girl in some other way, if possible.'
'I have offended you.'
'Impossible to take offence at such obvious sincerity.'
'But surely you grant the force of what I say?'
'We differ a good deal, Rhoda, on certain points which as a rule would never come up to interfere with our working in harmony. You have come to dislike the very thought of marriageand everything of that kind. I think it's a danger you ought to have avoided. True, we wish to prevent girls from marrying just for the sake of being supported, and from degrading themselves as poor Bella Royston has done; but surely between ourselves we can admit that the vast majority of women would lead a wasted life if they did not marry.'
'I maintain that the vast majority of women lead a vain and miserable life because they do marry.'
'Don't you blame the institution of marriage with what is chargeable to human fate? A vain and miserable life is the lot of nearly all mortals. Most women, whether they marry or not, will suffer and commit endless follies.'
'Most womenas life is at present arranged for them. Things are changing, and we try to have our part in hastening a new order.'
'Ah, we use words in a different sense. I speak of human nature, not of the effect of institutions.'
'Now it is you who are unpractical. Those views lead only to pessimism and paralysis of effort.'
Miss Barfoot rose.
'I give in to your objection against bringing the girl back to work here. I will help her in other ways. It's quite true that she isn't to be relied upon.'
'Impossible to trust her in any detail of life. The pity is that her degradation can't be used as an object lesson for our other girls.'
'There again we differ. You are quite mistaken in your ideas of how the mind is influenced. The misery of Bella Royston would not in the least affect any other girl's way of thinking about the destiny of her sex. We must avoid exaggeration. If our friends get to think of us as fanatics, all our usefulness is over. The ideal we set up must be human. Do you think now that we know one single girl who in her heart believes it is better never to love and never to marry?'
'Perhaps not,' admitted Rhoda, more cheerful now that she had gained her point. 'But we know several who will not dream of marrying unless reason urges them as strongly as inclination.'
Miss Barfoot laughed.
'Pray, who ever distinguished in such a case between reason and inclination?'
'You are most unusually sceptical to-day,' said Rhoda, with an impatient laugh.
'No, my dear. We happen to be going to the root of things, that's all. Perhaps it's as well to do so now and then. Oh, I admire you immensely, Rhoda. You are the ideal adversary of those care-nothing and believe-nothing women who keep the world back. But don't prepare for yourself a woeful disillusion.'
'Take the case of Winifred Haven,' urged Miss Nunn. 'She is a good-looking and charming girl, and some one or other will want to marry her some day, no doubt.'
'Forgive my interrupting you. There is great doubt. She has no money but what she can earn, and such girls, unless they are exceptionally beautiful, are very likely indeed to remain unsought.'
'Granted. But let us suppose she has an offer. Should you fear for her prudence?'
'Winifred has much good sense,' admitted the other. 'I think she is in as little danger as any girl we know. But it wouldn't startle me if she made the most lamentable mistake. Certainly I don't fear it. The girls of our class are not like the uneducated, who, for one reason or another, will marry almost any man rather than remain single. They have at all events personal delicacy. But what I insist upon is, that Winifred would rather marry than not. And we must carefully bear that fact in mind. A strained ideal is as bad, practically, as no ideal at all. Only the most exceptional girl will believe it her duty to remain single as an example and support to what we call the odd women; yet that is the most human way of urging what you desire. By taking up the proud position that a woman must be altogether independent of sexual things, you damage your cause. Let us be glad if we put a few of them in the way of living single with no more discontent than an unmarried man experiences.'
'Surely that's an unfortunate comparison,' said Rhoda coldly. 'What man lives in celibacy? Consider that unmentionable fact, and then say whether I am wrong in refusing to forgive Miss Royston. Women's battle is not only against themselves. The necessity of the case demands what you call a strained ideal. I am seriously convinced that before the female sex can be raised from its low level there will have to be a widespread revolt against sexual instinct. Christianity couldn't spread over the world without help of the ascetic ideal, and this great movement for woman's emancipation must also have its ascetics.'