Bob Hampton of Placer - Page 96/205

"I am afraid you do not greatly admire this Miss Spencer?"

"Oh, but I do; truly I do. You must not think me ungrateful. No one

has ever helped me more, and beneath this mask of artificiality she is

really a noble-hearted woman. I do not understand the necessity for

people to lead false lives. Is it this way in all society--Eastern

society, I mean? Do men and women there continually scheme and flirt,

smile and stab, forever assuming parts like so many play-actors?"

"It is far too common," he admitted, touched by her naive questioning.

"What is known as fashionable social life has become an almost pitiful

sham, and you can scarcely conceive the relief it is to meet with one

utterly uncontaminated by its miserable deceits, its shallow

make-believes. It is no wonder you shock the nerves of such people;

the deed is easily accomplished."

"But I do not mean to." And she looked at him gravely, striving to

make him comprehend. "I try so hard to be--be commonplace, and--and

satisfied. Only there is so much that seems silly, useless, pitifully

contemptible that I lose all patience. Perhaps I need proper training

in what Miss Spencer calls refinement; but why should I pretend to like

what I don't like, and to believe what I don't believe? Cannot one act

a lie as well as speak one? And is it no longer right to search after

the truth?"

"I have always felt it was our duty to discover the truth wherever

possible," he said, thoughtfully; "yet, I confess, the search is not

fashionable, nor the earnest seeker popular."

A little trill of laughter flowed from between her parted lips, but the

sound was not altogether merry.

"Most certainly I am not. They all scold me, and repeat with manifest

horror the terrible things I say, being unconscious that they are evil.

Why should I suspect thoughts that come to me naturally? I want to

know, to understand. I grope about in the dark. It seems to me

sometimes that this whole world is a mystery. I go to Mr. Wynkoop with

my questions, and they only seem to shock him. Why should they? God

must have put all these doubts and wonderings into my mind, and there

must be an answer for them somewhere. Mr. Wynkoop is a good man, I

truly respect him. I want to please him, and I admire his intellectual

attainments; but how can he accept so much on faith, and be content?

Do you really suppose he is content? Don't you think he ever questions

as I do? or has he actually succeeded in smothering every doubt? He

cannot answer what I ask him; he cannot make things clear. He just

pulls up a few, cheap, homely weeds,--useless common things,--when I

beg for flowers; he hands them to me, and bids me seek greater faith

through prayer. I know I am a perfect heathen,--Miss Spencer says I

am,--but do you think it is so awful for me to want to know these

things?"