But outside it was hardly better. The card players had gathered like flies settling down upon the remains of a feast, and at the end of the saloon three men were quarreling. Through an atmosphere thick, horrible, rose the angry voices. Was there going to be a fight? One might face death, even from smallpox, and yet not know quite how to accept life among sights and sounds like these. “What’s the matter?” said Mrs. Locke, catching Hildegarde just outside their door. “You’re not afraid! I tell you it isn’t smallpox.” “I know. That’s not it.” The girl leaned against the wall. Two of the angry men had combined against the third. His chief means of defense seemed to be blasphemy. They hurt the ears, those words. She felt an inward twist of humiliation as she remembered that Louis had said rather than see a sister of his go to Nome with the gold rush he’d see her— “Then what _is_ the matter?” asked the woman at her side, watching her with an odd intentness. “I suppose this isn’t the first time you’ve heard a man swear.” “The matter is—I feel as if what I’d seen and heard here would leave some sort of lasting stain. As if I’d gone through filth and some of it would stick to me for ever.” “No, you don’t. You’re only thinking of what some man might think.” Hildegarde caught her breath with the surprise of guilty recognition, as Mrs. Locke’s soft voice insisted: “Knowing doesn’t hurt a woman. Not the right sort of woman. But it does change us. You’ll find life will always look a little different to you after this.” Bella had said something like that! “It’s curious,” the woman went on, “how hard we struggle to live up to men’s standard of our ignorance. After all, their instinct about it is quite right.” “Instinct about what?” “That if we knew the truth, the truth would make us free.” “The truth might make frightened slaves of some of us.” “Only of the meanest.” “And you think men don’t want us free?” Hildegarde asked wearily. “A very few may. There are more of the other sort.” “Well, I know one man,” said the girl, cleansing consciousness with the vision, “one man who is the kind you’d say was an exception. I’m sure his not wanting me to come on this journey was just a natural shrinking from seeing any girl face hardships.” Mrs. Locke set her fine little face like marble. “This entire ship might have been full of girls facing hardships, and it wouldn’t have cost him a pang. But I can well believe your coming did.” “Ah, you see, you don’t know him.” The other shook her head. “Even the best men haven’t got so far as to want to respect _all_ women. Their good-will, their helpfulness, are kept in watertight compartments, reserved for particular women. The rest may go to the everlasting bonfire.” “No, no, no.” “Yes, it seems even to help them in being specially nice to some—” “What helps them?”