She had sat up stiffly on the window-seat while she was trying to say all this. Again she curled up. She watched Walter, as he sat there in deep thought, absent-mindedly drumming on the table with his pencil. She could not have talked like this to any one else in the world. She had expressed herself poorly; in her intensity she had slipped back into her old ways of speech, but she knew he did not care about doubled negatives, nor "ain't's." She knew he had understood. And just when she had found this wonderful friend, she was losing him. He was going away in the morning for years and years. Central Asia sounded far away and dangerous. Something might happen to him and he never come back. She was afraid she would cry if she kept silence any longer.
"What do you think?" she asked.
"I was wondering if you are afraid of anything."
"Oh, yes. Lots of things."
"For instance?"
"Well, I'm afraid of the Yetta Rayefsky who tried to kill Pick-Axe. And I'm afraid of myself for not blaming her for it. And I'm afraid of being useless. I'm afraid of waste. I'm afraid—more than anything else—of ignorance." She sat up again. "Yes. That's the worst thing the bosses do to us—they keep us ignorant. I don't think even you can understand that. You've had books all your life. You've been to school and college, you're a professor,"—the awe grew in Yetta's voice,—"your room is full of books. I sit here and look at them and try to think what it must mean to know all that's in so many books and I want to get down on my knees, I'm so ignorant."
"Good God! Yetta," he said savagely, jumping up. "Don't talk like that. I'm not worth your stepping on."
He came over and took her hand and surprised her by kissing it humbly.
"I'm going away to-morrow—for a very long while—and I want to tell you, before I go, that you're a saint, a heroine. Did books mean so much to you? And you decided to work instead of going to college? Books?" He grabbed one from the table and hurled it violently across the room. "Books? They are only paper and ink and dead men's thoughts. Truth and wisdom don't come from books. They can't teach you those things in college. Yes. I've had books all my life. I live with them." He stamped up and down and shook his fists at the unoffending shelves. "If I know anything Real, if I've got the smallest grain of wisdom, I didn't get it from them. There's only one teacher—that's Life, and before you can learn you've got to suffer. I don't know much because things have been easy for me. How old are you? Nineteen? Well, I'm over thirty. You talk about getting down on your knees to me! Good God! I've ten years start and every advantage, but I don't know—Capital K-N-O-W—as much as you. And good? I ought to ask your pardon for kissing your hands. I'm no good! God! I want to break something!"
He looked around savagely for something which would make a great noise. But he suddenly changed his mind, and pulling up a chair to the window-seat, where Yetta was sitting bolt upright, he began again in a quieter tone.