“The worst of it is, probably the truth would be beautiful, if we could only find it.”
Sir Robert again drew a long, long breath. “But what's the use, Eckhart?” said he. “What you say is of course true. But why make a Quixote of yourself? Why be a dam' fool! Society does cling to its little lie. Even at a sacrifice of half the women in the world. Admitting that some of our traditions are nothing more than outworn tribal notions, what's the use of beating your brains out against them. I tell you, my boy, if you talk too much of that sort of truth the world will kill you. And the women who call themselves good will lead the attack, for they are the sheltered, the privileged class. No, we must take it as we find it.”
But I was past all this now—past the influence of all his miserable sophistry. My head and hands were blazing hot.
“So!” I cried. “You tell me to play the coward! Do you not know that every one of the great explorers into the wonderful region of scientific truth has faced the terror and hatred of the world in precisely this way? Do you not know that if those great-hearted men, one after another, had not cut their way through the spiritual horrors of 'tradition' We should to-day be living in medieval darkness and filth? Why, Old Man, you yourself can remember when 'free-thinker' was a term of obloquy. To-day our right to think is the finest, greatest right we have.—Do you suppose I care if they kill me?” Again I waved my finger under his nose. “Tell me, Old Man, do you really imagine I care? Don't you know, the scientific mind better than that? Can't you see that I admit no tradition, no dogma, no authority. I am a scientist! I am of the most wonderful guild of explorers this wretched old world has yet seen—the guild that is exploring for the truth. Tradition has not stopped us yet. It will never stop us.”
I turned away. “Oh, I am disgusted with you,” I said—“with you and your beastly, cowardly mind! I'm sick of you!—Understand that? I'm sick of you!” And I walked straight for the door.
Sir Robert followed me. He had to step fast, too. He put his hand on my shoulder, and checked me. He loomed over me.
“Whatever you do, my boy,” he was saying, “keep your head. That woman has already wrecked two lives that we know of—possibly a third. Don't let her wreck yours.”
I wrenched away from him, and struck out alone into the narrow, muddy street between the Chinese houses.
I walked twice around the glacis that borders the Legation Quarter on the north, and through the Quarter from end to end on Legation Street. Scenes flitted past me that I only half saw—Peking carts with blue covers and little window's in the sides, innumerable street merchants uttering musical cries and offering trays of queer-smelling foods, and the usual indolent, good-humored crowds of blue-clad yellow men, with round yellow' children playing everywhere, underfoot and out in the mud of the street. In the Ha Ta Road a long wedding procession was passing, with an ornate red sedan chair for the poor little bride, and musical instruments that I did not so much as observe. I saw the stiff, cowed German soldiers on sentry duty at the eastern end of Legation Street, and, farther along, the solid masonry building of the Hongkong Bank; and, down a side street, the great, showy, extremely modern Wagon-lits Hotel. I vaguely noted the walls and trees of the British Compound, where centered the defense against the Boxer attack a dozen years ago. I strode by the American Compound, at the western end, and caught a glimpse through the open gate of lounging American boys in their olive drab. And, emerging on the plaza between the great Chien Gate in the Tartar Wall and the entrance to the Imperial City, I came upon a long train of laden camels, just in from Mongolia, each with a string in its ugly nose.
And all the way I knew that the confused forces that have been tearing at me during this disturbing week were merging into a new line of force. I knew, even then, that this meant a new direction for my life—my life that I once thought so simply and clearly outlined, so perfectly centered on a single interest. Now—God knows what is to become of me!