“Most of the women have been ordered out of those dangerous places in the South. Have you not heard the things that have been done there? You are foolhardy to have come—some strange madness possesses you.”
Julie’s eyes took on an abstracted look. “It is a madness that possesses others, too.”
Julie looked at her but remained silent. The two regarded each other; Isabel out of her blue eyes, Julie out of her jade-green ones.
“Why do you go? It is not safe. There are places in these islands where white women have never been seen.”
Julie’s eyes awoke. “I shall have something to do.”
“Will you stay in the wilds till you have given the Nahal islanders the higher education? Bah! Why do you wish to waste your youth at such things? You are beautiful, and were made to be admired, not to bury your youth in forgotten islands. You were made to taste life a little richer in the fruit than the rest. And you who could win so much renounce it all to be a spectacled ascetic hanging to the tails of existence. No Spanish woman would dream of doing such a thing! You have come half way round the world to do some vague thing you’ve set your heart on. Set your heart on life—it owes you much; make it magnificently pay! Did my Green God give you those eyes and that face for the edification of small Malays? Stay in Manila and drink life here where it sparkles and overflows the goblet. I would no more do what you are doing! I might be a nun—that is picturesque and fiercely renunciative. But to be a pedagogue to brown savages!—it is dull to tears. Then,”—as a final overpowering fact—“there will be no men!”
Julie’s eyes gleamed disapprobation. “The women of America have many resources. They go along their real way until their real fate overtakes them.”
“A single fate! Is there such a thing?” Isabel seemed feverishly to question herself. “I have made a long quest. I ought to know. No, there is no such thing. It is a tradition they fasten in women’s minds, to make them become mothers.
“Look,” she continued, turning toward the temple, “I will give you a present, because I am so sorry for you with such a terrible future. You are going out to be a little Atlas—to lift up the world. Tell me, when you return, how much you have supported on your little back.”