He looked up.  “One does not often find a woman willing to know.  Behind the confusion of such terms as ignorance and innocence most women continue their irresponsibility in certain directions.  They have accepted man’s decree that certain evils, having always existed, must always exist, and they have made little effort to test the truth of the assertion.  Lillie Pierce and the women of her world are largely the product of the attitude of good women toward them.  To the sin of men good women shut their eyes, pretend they do not know.  They do not want to know.”

“They not only do not want to know, themselves—­that is, many of them—­but they would keep others from knowing.  Perhaps it is natural.  So many things have happened to life in the past few years that even clever, able women are still bewildered, still uncertain what is right to do.  Life can never be again what it once was, and still, most of us are trying to live a new thing in an old way.  We have so long been purposely kept ignorant, so long not permitted to have opinions that count, so long been told our work is elsewhere, that cowardice and indifference, the fear of inability to deal with new conditions, new obligations, new responsibilities, still holds us back.  I get impatient, indignant, and then I realize—­”

David Guard laughed.  “That many are still in the child class?” His head tossed back the long lock of hair that fell over his forehead.  “It is true, but certainly you do not think because I see the backwardness, the blindness of some women, I do not see the forwardness, the vision of others?  Men have hardly guessed as yet that it is chiefly due to women that the world is now asking questions it has never asked before, beginning to look life in the face where once it blinked at it.  Because of what women have suggested, urged, insisted on, and worked for, the social conscience all over the earth has been aroused, social legislation enacted, and social dreams stand chance of coming true.  Certain fields they have barely entered yet, however.  It is easy to understand why.  When they realize what is required of them, they will not hold back.  But as yet, among the women you know, how many give a thought to Lillie Pierce’s world, to the causes and conditions which make her and her kind?”

I shook my head.  “I do not know.  I’ve never heard her world discussed.”

“I suppose not.  In this entire city there are few women who think of girls like Lillie Pierce, or care to learn the truth concerning them; care enough to see that though they went unto dogs, unto dogs they need not return if they wish to get away.  Most people, both men and women, imagine such girls like their hideous life; that they entered it from deliberate choice.  Out of a hundred there may be a dozen who so chose, but each of the others has her story, in many instances a story that would shame all men because of man.”  He glanced at the clock and got up quickly.