'There is a passion,' I said, as we came out of one of these
dreadful places, 'that lingers about the heart like the odour of
violets, like a glimmering twilight on the borders of moonrise; and
there is a passion that wraps itself in the vapours of patchouli and
coffins, and streams from the eyes like gaslight from a tavern. And
yet the line is ill to draw between them. It is very dreadful.
These are women.'
'They are in God's hands,' answered Falconer. 'He hasn't done with
them yet. Shall it take less time to make a woman than to make a
world? Is not the woman the greater? She may have her ages of
chaos, her centuries of crawling slime, yet rise a woman at last.'
'How much alike all those women were!'
'A family likeness, alas! which always strikes you first.'
'Some of them looked quite modest.'
'There are great differences. I do not know anything more touching
than to see how a woman will sometimes wrap around her the last
remnants of a soiled and ragged modesty. It has moved me almost to
tears to see such a one hanging her head in shame during the singing
of a detestable song. That poor thing's shame was precious in the
eyes of the Master, surely.'
'Could nothing be done for her?'
'I contrived to let her know where she would find a friend if she
wanted to be good: that is all you can do in such cases. If the
horrors of their life do not drive them out at such an open door,
you can do nothing else, I fear--for the time.
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