"Yes, they are like the little bugs," she said, "in the blind way that they hold together! But please, Dr. Blanchard, don't say they are soulless. Don't—"
All at once the Young Doctor's hand was banging upon the table. All at once his voice was vehemently raised.
"It's the difference in our point of view, Miss Thompson," he told Rose-Marie, "and I'm afraid that I'm right and that you're—not right. You've come from a pretty little country town where every one was fairly comfortable and fairly prosperous. You've always been a part of a community where people went to church and prayer-meeting and Sunday-school. Your neighbours loved each other, and played Pollyanna when things went wrong. And you wore white frocks and blue sashes whenever there was a lawn party or a sociable." He paused, perhaps for breath, and then—"I'm different," he said; "I struggled for my education; it was always the survival of the fittest with me. I worked my way through medical school. I had my hospital experience in Bellevue and on the Island—most of my patients were the lowest of the low. I've tried to cure diseased bodies—but I've left diseased minds alone. Diseased minds have been out of my line. Perhaps that's why I've come through with an ideal of life that's slightly different from your sunshine and apple blossoms theory!"
"Oh," Rose-Marie was half sobbing, "oh, you're so hard!"
The Young Doctor faced her suddenly and squarely. "Why did you come here," he cried, "to the slums? Why did you come to work in a Settlement House? What qualifications have you to be a social service worker, you child? What do you know of the meaning of service, of life?"
Rose-Marie's voice was earnest, though shaken.
"I came," she answered, "because I love people and want to help them. I came because I want to teach them to think beautiful thoughts, to have beautiful ideals. I came because I want to show them the God that I know—and try to serve—" she faltered.
The Young Doctor laughed—but not pleasantly.
"And I," he said, "came to make their bodies as healthy as possible. I came because curing sick bodies was my job—not because I loved people or had any particular faith in them. Prescribing to criminals and near-criminals isn't a reassuring work; it doesn't give one faith in human nature or in human souls!"
The Superintendent had been forgotten. But her tired voice rose suddenly across the barrier of speech that had grown high and icy between the Young Doctor and Rose-Marie.