People Like That | Page 8

as trying to empty the ocean
with a teaspoon or to pick a posy out of swamp grass."
"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 pass 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 assuredly 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 fashionable part of the city,
and that gorgeous parties and balls--" 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?"
"Two doors from here. The girl who gave it, or rather, to whom it was
given, is named Bryce--Evelyn Bryce. She is a friend of Mrs. Mundy's
and is a printer. I never knew a girl printer until I came down here."
Selwyn's look of amazed disapprobation had its usual effect. I hadn't
intended to mention the party, and instantly I went into its details.
"All kinds of people were at it and every woman had on a dress which
entirely covered her. When I was a child I adored a person named
Wyman, who used to give performances in which all sorts of
unexpected things happened. Last night was a sort of Wyman night."

"I did not know you were going to parties." Selwyn's tone was curt.
"I am not--to your sort." My face flushed. "I said this girl was a printer.
I should have said she used to be. Two years ago she was caught in
some machinery at the place where she worked and has never been able
to stand up since. On her birthday her friends give her a party that she
may have