"I want to sit at your feet." "You dear boy." "I feel quite humble ... I don't want you to see my face when I talk." She drew my head against her knees. Threw one arm as if protectingly over my shoulder. "There. Are you comfortable, boy?" "Yes. Are you?" "Quite ... don't be ashamed ... I know much about life that you do not know ... tell me all." * * * * * So I told her all about myself ... my ambition ... my struggles ... my morbidity ... my lack of experience with girls and women.... "And I must have experience soon ... it's obsessing me ... it can't last this way much longer ... I shall go mad." And I rehearsed to her a desperate resolve I had made ... to find a woman of the streets, in New York, when I went in, the ensuing week ... and force myself, no matter how I loathed it-- I buried my head in her lap and sobbed hysterically. Then I apologised--"forgive me if I have been too frank!" "I am a radical woman ... Penton and I both believe in the theory of free love, though we happen to be married ... what you have told me is all sweet and natural to me ... only--you must not do what you say you'll do--in New York!--" "I must, or--" and I paused, to go on in a lower, embarrassed voice ... "Do--do you know what else I thought of--dreamed of--? "In Paris--I understand--men live with women as a matter of course-- "You see--" I was hot with shame to the very ears, "you see--there, you know,--I thought if I went there I would find some pretty little French girl that I would take to live with me ... in some romantic attic in the Montmartre district ... and we would be happy together ... and I would be grateful, so grateful, to her!" "Why you're the Saint Francis of the Radicals," Hildreth exclaimed. "Please don't make fun of me ... I suppose you think me very foolish." "Foolish?... No, I think you have a very beautiful soul. I wish every man had a soul like that." She took my head in her hands and kissed me on the brow. "Hildreth, only tell me what I am to do?" "I do not know ... theoretically I believe in freedom in sex ... I wish to God I could help you." "Why can't you?" "Hush, you do not know what you're asking!" "By the living Christ, I only know that I would crawl after you, and kiss your holiest feet before all the world, if you helped me." "Now I understand what Lecky meant when he spoke of the sacrificial office of a certain type of women ... I only wish ... but come, we must go." I was on my feet beside her, as she rose. "Yes, we had better go home," I spoke quietly, though my heart pumped as if I had taken strychnine. I put my arms about her, to steady her going, for she stumbled. "Why, Hildreth, dearest woman, you're trembling all over, what's the matter?... have I--I frightened you with my wild talk?"