"But after?" I said. "After?" He shrugged. "I wasn't borrowing trouble, you understand?" he said. "No," I told him. "No. You were just piling it up for me--that was all. Now see here: In these five years I've had school as I wanted to have then. I know more. I'm better worth while. I'm better able to take my place among human beings. I've begun to grow--as people were meant to grow. Truly--were you willing to take away from me every chance of that--and perhaps to see me thrown on the scrap-heap--just to get what you wanted?" He looked at me, and then around his table, where his wife's twenty guests were sitting--well-bred, charming folk, all of them. "My God," he said, "what a funny dinner-table conversation." "Isn't it?" I agreed. "These things are usually just done--they aren't very often said. But I wish that you could tell me. I should think you'd be interested yourself. Don't you see that we've got a quite unusual chance to run this thing down?" For the first time I saw in his eyes a look of real intelligence--the sort of intelligence that he must have used with other men, in business, in politics, in general talk. For the first time he seemed to me not just a male, but a human being. "Seriously," he said gravely, "I don't suppose that one man in ten thousand ever thinks of what is going to become of the woman. Of course there are the rotters who don't care. Most of them just don't think. I didn't think." "I'm glad to believe," I said, "that you didn't think. I've wondered about it. But will you tell me one thing more: If men don't think, as you say, why is it that they are so much more likely to hunt down 'unprotected' women, working women, women alone in a city--than those who have families and friends?" There was something terrible in the question, and in the way that he answered it. He served himself to a delicious ragout that was passed to him, he sipped and savored the wine in his glass, and then he turned back to me: "They are easier," he said simply, "because so many of them don't get paid enough to live on. They're glad to help out." "And yet," I said, "and yet, Mr. Carney, you own a factory where three hundred and fifty of these girls don't get paid enough." "Oh, well, murder!" he said. "Now you're getting on to something else entirely. We can't do anything to wages. They're fixed altogether by supply and demand--supply and demand. You simply take these things as you find them--that's all." "You took me to that factory," I reminded him. "Well," he said, "you were looking for a job, weren't you? Was that three dollars per better than nothing--or wasn't it?" I kept still. Something was the matter, we seemed to go in a circle. Finally I said: "Anyway, Mr. Carney, I thank you for answering me. That was a good deal to do." He sat turning his wine-glass, one hand over his mouth.