I wrote the review, and asked Mr. Stead for an introduction to the writer, and then sent a note asking to be allowed to call.  I received the most cordial of notes, bidding me come, and in the soft spring evening Herbert Burrows and I—­for his aspirations were as mine on this matter—­walked from Netting Hill Station, wondering what we should meet, to the door of 17, Lansdowne Road.  A pause, a swift passing through hall and outer room, through folding-doors thrown back, a figure in a large chair before a table, a voice, vibrant, compelling, “My dear Mrs. Besant, I have so long wished to see you,” and I was standing with my hand in her firm grip, and looking for the first time in this life straight into the eyes of “H.P.B.”  I was conscious of a sudden leaping forth of my heart—­was it recognition?—­and then, I am ashamed to say, a fierce rebellion, a fierce withdrawal, as of some wild animal when it feels a mastering hand.  I sat down, after some introductions that conveyed no ideas to me, and listened.  She talked of travels, of various countries, easy brilliant talk, her eyes veiled, her exquisitely moulded fingers rolling cigarettes incessantly.  Nothing special to record, no word of Occultism, nothing mysterious, a woman of the world chatting with her evening visitors.  We rose to go, and for a moment the veil lifted, and two brilliant, piercing eyes met mine, and with a yearning throb in the voice:  “Oh, my dear Mrs. Besant, if you would only come among us!” I felt a well-nigh uncontrollable desire to bend down and kiss her, under the compulsion of that yearning voice, those compelling eyes, but with a flash of the old unbending pride and an inward jeer at my own folly, I said a commonplace polite good-bye, and turned away with some inanely courteous and evasive remark.  “Child,” she said to me long afterwards, “your pride is terrible; you are as proud as Lucifer himself.”  But truly I think I never showed it to her again after that first evening, though it sprang up wrathfully in her defence many and many a time, until I learned the pettiness and the worthlessness of all criticism, and knew that the blind were objects of compassion not of scorn.

Once again I went, and asked about the Theosophical Society, wishful to join, but fighting against it.  For I saw, distinct and clear—­with painful distinctness, indeed—­what that joining would mean.  I had largely conquered public prejudice against me by my work on the London School Board, and a smoother road stretched before me, whereon effort to help should be praised not blamed.  Was I to plunge into a new vortex of strife, and make myself a mark for ridicule—­worse than hatred—­and fight again the weary fight for an unpopular truth?  Must I turn against Materialism, and face the shame of publicly confessing that I had been wrong, misled by intellect to ignore the Soul?  Must I leave the army that had battled for me so bravely, the friends who through all brutality of social ostracism had