"Thank you, Mr. Hunt," said Miss Goucher, rising once more. "I appreciate this." And she walked from the room. It was the next afternoon that Susan burst into my study without knocking--a breach of manners which she had recently learned to conquer, so the irruption surprised me. But I noted instantly that Susan's agitation had carried her far beyond all thought for trifles. Never had I seen her like this. Her whole being was vibrant with emotional stress. "Ambo!" she cried, all but slamming the door behind her. "Sonia mustn't go! I won't let her go! You and Miss Goucher may think what you please--I won't, Ambo! It's wicked! You don't want Sonia to be like Tilly Jaretski, do you?" "Like Tilly Jaretski?" My astonishment was so great that I babbled the unfamiliar name merely to gain time, collect my senses. "Yes!" urged Susan, almost leaping to my side, and seizing my arm with tense fingers. "She'll be just like Tilly was, along State Street--after her baby came. Tilly wasn't a bit like Pearl, Ambo; and Sonia isn't either! But she's going to have a baby, too, Ambo, like Tilly." With a wrench of my entire nervous system I, in one agonizing second, completely dislocated the prejudices of a lifetime, and rose to the situation confronting me. O Hillhouse Avenue, right at both ends! How little you had prepared me for this precocious knowledge of life--knowledge that utterly degrades or most wonderfully saves--which these children, out toward the wrong end of the Birch Streets of the world, drink in almost with their mothers' milk! How far I, a grown man--a cultured, sophisticated man--must travel, Susan, even to begin to equal your simple acceptance of naked, ugly fact--sheer fact--seen, smelt, heard, tasted! How far--how far! "Susan," I said gravely, "does Miss Goucher know about Sonia?" "I don't know. I suppose so. I haven't seen her yet. When Sonia came to me, crying--I ran straight in here!" "And how long have _you_ known?" "Over a week. Sonia told me all about it, Ambo. Count Dimbrovitski got her in trouble. She loved him, Ambo--her way. She doesn't any more. Sonia can't love anybody long; he can't, either. That's why his wife sent Sonia off. Sonia says she knows her husband's like that, but so long as she can hush things up, she doesn't care. Sonia says she has a lover herself, and Count Dim doesn't care much either. Oh, Ambo--how _stuffy_ some people are! I don't mean Sonia. She's just pitiful--like Tilly. But those others--they're different--I can feel it! Oh, how _Artemis_ must hate them, Ambo!" Susan's tense fingers relaxed, slipping from my arm; she slid down to the floor, huddled, and leaning against the padded side of my chair buried her face in her hands.