“I am not speaking of beauty; I am speaking of ideality, of purity.  Don’t you see what I mean?  Now, be honest.”

“Yes, I do.”

“Ah!” said Armine.

The exclamation sounded warmly pleased.

“But that look, I think, is a question merely of line, and of the way the hair grows.  Do you mean to say that you would rather judge a woman by that than by the actions of her life?”

“No.  But I do say that if you examined the life of a woman with a face like that—­the real life—­you would be certain to find that it had not been devoid of actions such as you would expect, actions illustrating that look of ideality which any one can see.  What does Mrs. Derringham really know of Mrs. Chepstow?  She is not personally acquainted with her, even.  She acknowledged that.  She has never spoken to her, and doesn’t want to.”

“That scarcely surprises me, I confess,” the Doctor remarked.

There was a definite dryness in his tone, and Armine noticed it.

“You are prejudiced, I see,” he said.

In his voice there was a sound of disappointment.

“I don’t exactly know why, but I have always looked upon you as one of the most fair-minded, broad-minded men I have met, Isaacson,” he said.  “Not as one of those who must always hunt with the hounds.”

“The question is, What is prejudice?  The facts of a life are facts, and cannot leave one wholly uninfluenced for or against the liver of the life.  If I see a man beating a dog because it has licked his hand, I draw the inference that he is cruel.  Would you say that I am narrow-minded in doing so?  If one does not judge men and women by their actions, by what is one to judge them?  Perhaps you will say, ’Don’t judge them at all.’  But it is impossible not to form opinions on people, and every time one forms an opinion one passes a secret judgment.  Isn’t it so?”

“I think feeling enters into the matter.  Often one gets an immediate impression, before one knows anything about the facts of a life.  The facts may seem to give that impression the lie.  But is it wrong?  I think very often not.  I remember once I heard a woman, and a clever woman, say of a man whom she knew intimately, ’They accuse him of such and such an act.  Well, if I saw him commit it, I would not believe he had done it!’ Absurd, you will say.  And yet is it so absurd?  In front of the real man may there not be a false man, is there not often a false man, like a mask over a face?  And doesn’t the false man do things that the real man condemns?  I would often rather judge with my heart than with my eyes, Isaacson—­yes, I would.  That woman said a fine thing when she said that, and she was not absurd, though every one who heard her laughed at her.  When one gets what one calls an impression, one’s heart is speaking, is saying, ‘This is the truth.’  And I believe the heart, without reasoning, knows what the truth is.”

“And if two people get diametrically different impressions of the same person?  What then?  That sometimes happens, you know.”